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The KUCB Newsroom provides newscasts Monday through Thursday at noon and 5 PM on KUCB Radio. You can find many of our local news stories here.

Murkowski Asks HELP Not To Test Students

Senator Lisa Murkowski wants the U.S. Department of Education to guarantee Alaskan students will not have to resume assessment testing this year.

At a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee yesterday, Murkowski stressed problems with the Alaska Measure of Progress (AMP) test were more than technical glitches.

"The cable that delivered the test to Alaskan students and captured their answers kept crashing. Every time the system crashed, students had to re-start the test from the beginning, meaning they were answering the same questions over and over again," Murkowski said. 

Alaska’s AMP assessment was canceled last month after a backhoe severed a fiber optic cable at the University of Kansas -- home of test vendor AAI.

She says students’ performances and moral were affected.

"When you think about the frustrations of the students -- they don’t like being in the test in the first place -- but when you try and things stop and start and stop and start, or are inconsistent -- it’s extraordinarily frustrating. Uniform testing conditions were compromised and failed us," Murkowski said.

The state’s position is not unique. Just last year, Nevada canceled their statewide assessment testing after technical difficulties and they are not facing a penalty.

Murkowski wants the same for Alaska, but she’ll have to wait for a decision. Speaking for the Department of Education, Secretary John King says the DOE wants to consult with Alaska’s interim commissioner Dr. Susan McCauley.

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Zoë Sobel reported for KUCB from 2016 until 2019. She returned to KUCB after a year living in Nepal and Malaysia as a Luce Scholar. She then returned to KUCB as a ProPublica reporter August of 2020 through August of 2021.