Dispute halts online testing at state schools.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

Thousands of Oregon schoolchildren will have to take this year's state assessment tests the old-fashioned way, the state Department of Education announced Monday.

The vendor that has successfully run the state's computerized testing system since its inception six years ago, Vantage Learning of Pennsylvania, has severed its contract with Oregon because of an ongoing billing dispute, forcing the department to place a rush order on 450,000 paper test booklets.

Those tests won't be ready until early May, well beyond the traditional assessment window.

The switch poses numerous challenges for schools, teachers and students, who get immediate results with the electronic testing and may take versions of the math and reading tests up to three times to boost their scores. With pencil and paper, they'll have one shot and probably won't learn results until the fall.

This puts the pressure back on the teacher and students to perform on the day or days of testing, said Tim Rochholz, principal at Kelly Middle School, where some students already have completed online tests.

He and other educators also questioned the legitimacy of the results, given that students will have used two different methods at two different times of the year, with only some getting a chance to retest.

"We have real concerns about whether you can compare this year's scores to any other year," Bethel School Superintendent Colt Gill said. "It would be nice if this could be a totally lost year."

While the scores don't count toward a student's grade, the state and federal governments rely on test performance and participation data to assess a school's effectiveness.

The announcement followed a spate of problems in recent weeks with the Technology Enhanced Statewide Assessment system; the problems don't appear to be related to the bitter payment dispute - one that will almost surely wind up in court - between the department and Vantage Learning.

On Friday, Vantage shut down the system and posted a notice on the TESA Web site explaining that it was ending the contract because of unpaid invoices. Two days earlier, the department had told districts for the second time in less than a week to halt testing because of widely reported problems that included system crashes, missing information and students getting bounced off in the middle of testing.

Vantage worked with Oregon to develop TESA in 2001. The dispute over payments began last spring, although company and department officials disagree over the details and whether the money - $2.8 million - is actually owed.

State Deputy Superintendent Ed Dennis said Vantage informed the department orally last May about payments due because the number of tests taken exceeded the maximum allowed in the contract. While the department requested information in writing, it wasn't until October that the invoices arrived, he said. That was just days after Vantage had learned it wasn't eligible to bid for the next contract, up in July, Dennis said. The Department of Administrative Services had made that determination, he said, finding that Vantage fell short of bid requirements related to its billing system and staff.

Dennis said Vantage officials at one point offered to "tear up" the past invoices if Oregon would cancel the bidding process - required by state law, he noted - and stick with Vantage.

Bob Patrylak, Vantage Learning's general counsel, said the company made no such offer, but did offer to delay collection as part of a good-faith effort to work things out.

Patrylak also said the department exaggerated the recent problems with TESA, noting that the day after the last warning went out to schools, 21,000 students successfully completed online exams. He said there was only one 36-hour period when the system failed, although he acknowledged that a system update - requested by Oregon "against our best judgment," he said - did cause some sluggishness.

"The fact of the matter is they owe money and they don't want to pay it," he said.

Dennis said the contract language about the cap on the number of tests taken was amended prior to the period for which Vantage is billing the department.

Vantage officials informed the department in a Jan. 23 letter that they planned to terminate the contract. Dennis said he flew to Philadelphia to try to work things out face to face, and froze department expenditures in order to offer Vantage an additional $800,000 on top of the usual $1.2 million to finish this year's testing.

Dennis said he didn't know whether the recent service problems were related to the contract dispute.

The department will leave it up to districts to decide which students to test, spokesman Gene Evans said. Students who have taken the exam fewer than three times on a computer have the option of taking the paper version. The science test will be canceled.

Dennis said the state was likely to face stiff penalties totaling at least $1.5 million, and to lose federal funds, if it failed to complete student testing. Oregon tests all students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 10 in math and reading.