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Critics Say Ohio's Crash Demonstrates the Problem with Centralized Testing

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The amount of time devoted to state standardized testing has been growing in Ohio.

School districts around the state were forced to change their standardized testing schedules because of a system malfunction. Ohio’s testing vendor, AIR, told the state that students were not able to log-in and access their tests. One lawmaker says this is an example of a bigger issue he’s concerned about.

Republican Sen. Matt Huffman has a bill that would reduce the state’s involvement in education, giving more power to the local level. He says scaling back statewide testing is part of that.

“If the local school districts had their local tests -- I understand that we have to have accountability and some standardized testing -- but if their local computer vendor messed up it wouldn’t have effected all these other school districts.”

Because of the malfunction, the state has extended the testing window by two days.

The way student achievement and school performance are assessed is coming under fire from lawmakers. Concerns range from over testing to the way the information is presented through state report cards.

Andy Chow is a general assignment state government reporter who focuses on environmental, energy, agriculture, and education-related issues. He started his journalism career as an associate producer with ABC 6/FOX 28 in Columbus before becoming a producer with WBNS 10TV.