STAAR Online Writing Test Controversy: Students Experienced Technical Problems During Online Test

The STAAR writing tests are taken by fourth and seventh grade Texas public school students to determine important educational matters such as academic ratings, teachers' salary and whether students can graduate. Unfortunately, students who took the recent STAAR online writing test in Texas experienced a lot of glitches and technical problems while taking the online test, risking the futures of many. 

"The technical issues experienced today during the online administration of STAAR are simply unacceptable," Education Commissioner Mike Morath said in a press statement via The Dallas Morning News. "Such issues undermine the hard work of our teachers and students.

"Kids in the classroom should never suffer from mistakes made by adults," Morath continued. The technical problems involved glitches in saving the students' test answers.

Some students may need to re-take STAAR test because of glitch... https://t.co/tPNxYTiQIb pic.twitter.com/wejwjHuYgG

— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) March 30, 2016

Students from different Central Texas districts reported these technical problems which also involved getting error messages when submitting the tests online. Apparently, students would experience the glitch had they already logged out once, had been ejected due to inactivity for 30 minutes or if they briefly lost Internet connection.

State officials are still trying to identify just how many students and districts experienced technical problems during their STAAR online writing tests. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) -- which conducted the STAAR online writing test program for the first time -- has apologized for the great inconvenience caused by the technical problems experienced by the students.

"This is a critical issue and we have several teams investigating it," ETS wrote in an email sent to school districts. "But we need to do further investigation to confirm that this is the case."

Schools are still trying to find out if the affected students need to retake the STAAR online writing test. Furthermore, schools are also waiting for announcements regarding the issue of retaking the test from the Texas Education Agency, 6Kris TV reports.