Make New York Post a Preferred Source Thousands of New York City schoolchildren vying for spots at the city’s elite specialized high schools were sent packing Saturday after a massive technical glitch derailed their entrance exams — leaving furious parents demanding answers.
Some 2,500 Big Apple students were either unable to log on to the digital Specialized High Schools Admissions Test or were forced to stop midway through the exam because of a technical problem involving testing vendor Pearson, according to a Department of Education letter obtained by The Post.
“This morning, SHSAT testing sites experienced a technical issue with the testing platform that disrupted testing. As a result, testing was discontinued and students were dismissed from testing sites,” the letter to families stated.
Parents were outraged after their children spent countless hours preparing for the high-stakes exam — only to have it derailed by a technical glitch.
“My son was at Brooklyn Tech for over four hours today — his group took the test for two hours and then was told to stop. He’s stressed and exhausted. What a mess,” one parent posted on Facebook.
An internal DOE email first reported by Susan Edelman showed that the agency was trying to pin the blame for the failure on Pearson.
“This morning during test administration the vendor (Pearson) had significant issues impacting many students’ ability to log on and take or finish the test,” the email stated.
City Councilmember Susan Zhuang slammed the DOE for trying to shift the blame to the third-party vendor and called on the agency to take accountability.
“The DOE may point to its testing contractor, Pearson, but accountability cannot be outsourced,” Zhuang posted on X.
“No student should lose an opportunity because the adults responsible failed to do their jobs. No family should be left in the dark,” she added.
The letter went on to promise that students who were scheduled to take the test Saturday would receive a new test date, which families will find out by Nov. 20.
Parents of students who managed to complete the test, but who feel that the technical issues adversely affected their performance, will be allowed to request a retest, the letter stated.
A technical glitch caused thousands of students to lose out on taking the SHSAT Saturday. Bloomberg via Getty Images Pearson was awarded a contract to administer a digital version of the SHSAT in 2024, and this is the first year that the DOE rolled out an adaptive version of the test which adjusts the difficulty of questions given to a particular student based on which questions they answer correctly.
The SHSAT is the sole determining factor for admission to eight of the city’s nine specialized high schools.
Manhattan Institute fellow Danyela Egorov called for an independent investigation into the DOE over the testing failure.
Students will have to take the test on a new date. KOTO – stock.adobe.com “This is very disruptive for students and we need an independent investigation to know what happened and how to prevent it next year,” she said.
The technical problems affected multiple testing sites across the city, including Brooklyn Tech and Stuyvesant, sources said.
Former Deputy Chancellor for the Division of School Support and Instruction Eric Nadelstern said the DOE should consider moving the date of the test in the future in light of the system failure.
“In the future the DOE needs to consider giving this test well before the Thanksgiving recess, because if they reschedule it, it’s going to be an issue around the holidays,” he said.
“Nobody anticipates system failures, let alone system failures all over the world,” he added.
The DOE did not return The Post’s request for comment.
