Clover, Rock Hill students among those affected by ACT technical problems

More than 500 Clover High School students experienced problems last spring during ACT testing that may have affected their scores, according to the school district.

The S.C. Department of Education on Nov. 9 released scores for the 2016-17 ACT, a timed college entrance exam taken by high schools juniors, with a notification about technical failures during online ACT testing. An estimated 25,000 students in South Carolina were affected during the test.

“School districts that chose to give the ACT online experienced significant technical difficulties attributed to ACT’s online testing system,” the South Carolina DOE stated. “The online testing system resulted in delayed reporting and questions about the validity of scores.”

The tests were administered in school districts from Feb. 25 to March 14, 2017.

Some Rock Hill students were kicked out of the online program during testing and had to be signed back in, while others had delays, said Mychal Frost, spokesperson for the school district.

Clover students also experienced delays, with some questions taking 10 to 15 seconds to load, said Melanie Wall, director of gifted and talented programs for the Clover district.

“Those delays in loading caused students not to have the allotted amount of time for each sub test,” Wall said.

The delays also may have impacted how students prepared for the test, as many have strategies to deal with timed tests, said Bryan Dillon, spokesperson for the Clover district.

Based on past issues, the Fort Mill school district applied for a waiver and was able to give the ACT on paper and pencil, said Joe Burke, district spokesperson. The York school district did not experience problems, said district spokesperson Tim Cooper.

Officials with school districts in Chester and Lancaster counties said they did not experience issues with online ACT testing.

On May 15, ACT Inc. sent a statement to the schools stating: “These issues may have created disruptions or distractions, altered the timing of the tests, led students to change their test-taking strategy or had other impacts. The scores from an administration where technical problems occurred may not be an accurate reflection of a student’s knowledge or skills. Technical issues that occurred during online testing may have compromised the validity of some student scores.”

ACT scores represent the level of achievement students need to have a 50 percent chance of earning a B or higher or a 75 percent chance of scoring a C or higher in college courses for credit, the release states. Colleges consider the scores during the student admissions process.

Ryan Brown, spokesperson with the S.C. Department of Education, said issues ranged from small glitches to significant errors that shut down the whole testing process in some schools.

“It’s hard to say, with all the issues we’ve experienced, that we can stand behind (the scores) 100 percent,” Brown said. “Right now, where we are at, is more or less an accurate reflection of the state’s performance.”

The education department says 96 percent of districts that used the online testing system experienced technical difficulties.

“Our opinion is (ACT) was not prepared to give an online assessment to this many students,” Brown said. “We had a lot of major issues that impacted the validity of scores. It’s concerning for us and impacted a lot of students.”

Ed Colby, ACT spokesperson, said many of the issues were related to an Amazon Web Service national outage on Feb. 28 that impacted companies across the country on testing day. Colby said students who felt their scores were impacted by the issues were allowed to cancel their scores.

“It was an unfortunate situation, over which ACT had no control,” Colby said in an email to The Herald. “Any students who experienced technical issues during testing were provided an opportunity to take the ACT again. ACT stands behind all of the ACT scores it reported in South Carolina. ACT does not issue scores it deems to be invalid for any reason.”

Wall said Clover offered all juniors the opportunity to retake their ACT with paper and pencil, and some did.

Molly Spearman, state superintendent of education, released a statement about her concern.

“I do not feel the scores we release today are an accurate portrayal of the abilities of many of our students,” Spearman wrote in a prepared statement. “The online administration was mired with ACT system failures that led to canceled and inaccurate score reporting. I remain deeply concerned, and hope we can work with ACT to prevent these issues in the future.”

The released scores reflect ACT retests, which were done with paper and pencil, Brown said. He said the education department is encouraging school districts to use the traditional method for 2017-18 rather than online testing.

“It’s an unfortunate thing we are going to be working through with ACT,” Brown said. “We hope to have changes in the future to prevent this from happening.”

Not all students will have to take the ACT this school year. Act 94 takes effect in 2017-18, which allows all South Carolina 11th-grade students the option to take the ACT or SAT college readiness assessments, the release states. Under the new law, South Carolina will provide students the option to take or retake a college readiness assessment, career readiness assessment and/or earn industry certifications in their senior year at no cost to the student or parent, as funds allow.

This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 1:22 PM with the headline "Clover, Rock Hill students among those affected by ACT technical problems."