Lawsuit over glitchy student testing system is finally settled

Salt Lake City, Utah —On Friday the Utah State Board of Education announced it had reached a settlement with Questar Assessment.

A lawsuit over a glitchy student testing system that resulted in thousands of Utah students having difficulty taking standardized tests in 2019 has finally been settled.

Utah will be paid $3.3 million for the problems, under the settlement, approved by the board.

“We are glad to reach a conclusion with Questar and move forward,” Mark Huntsman, the board’s chair, said in a statement announcing the agreement. “This settlement represents the closing of a chapter for the State of Utah and serves the Board’s goal of allowing us to continue to try and provide the very best tools and resources we can in regards to statewide assessments and accountability.”

In 2019 more than 18,000 students across Utah had trouble completing the RISE tests. Questar at the time blamed “slowness” and “intermittent outages” for the problem.

Students had to retake the test and parents and teachers were left frustrated. The issue led the Utah State Board of Education to cancel a 10-year, $44 million contract with Questar.