Lawmakers wanted to know how unique Tennessee’s testing problems were. Here’s the answer.

As Tennessee’s testing system went off the rails this spring, the state’s agency charged with staying on top of education research started getting phone calls and emails. Legislators wanted to know how — and if — other states were weathering the transition to online testing. 

So the Office of Research and Education Accountability, a division of the state comptroller’s office, created a report detailing how online testing unfolded in other states, including an interactive map that highlights which states also had major glitches in the first year of testing. 

“A question [lawmakers] often ask is what is happening in other states, what are other states doing,” said Russell Moore, OREA’s director. For testing, “this was the front and center question.”

Moore said the intent of the report was to answer lawmakers’ questions about the status of testing in other states, not to highlight which testing vendors have been the most successful at online testing.

But as the state education department picks a new company to get a hefty testing contract — Measurement Inc.’s contract was worth about $108 million — officials might find the report helpful. It shows which states saw the least problems in the transition to online testing — and what vendors they used.

Nearly a dozen states had problems akin to Tennessee’s — and, like Tennessee, nearly a dozen opted to switch vendors after only the first year of testing. The state is set to announce the vendor that will replace Measurement Inc. within the next two weeks.

The report is meant to be accessible to the general public, in Tennessee and beyond, as well as lawmakers, according to Moore. You can explore the report for yourself here.