[Pontiac]

Robinson acknowledged Tuesday that teachers were not adequately prepared for how strictly the tests were going to be graded this year, and said he “realized that overnight students didn’t just become bad writers.”

Why weren’t the teachers prepared? How could they not be prepared?

Can there be other than right and wrong answers?

Do the students have the skills necessary to perform the work or not? Is there another possible outcome?

[MrB]

It’s a comprehensive assessment test.

A test that assesses, comprehensively, the education level that the students currently have.

“Cramming” is not required for an assessment.

[GladesGuru]

“realized that overnight students didn’t just become bad writers.” “

Appallingly accurate.

The pooblic skool collective workers (teachers) and their overlords (administrators) have labored for generations to achieve such depths of FAIL.

[Clara Lou]

It's not as simple as you might imagine. For the writing test, there are criteria to be met for each score a student could receive. (In Texas, the TAKS writing scores were 1, 2, 3, or 4, 4 being the highest.) Over the years, the state's requirements for "good writing" has changed. Spelling, capitalization, punctuation might be weighted differently, of they might not count at all. Is the writing on topic? Does the student elaborate? Is there and opening, a body, and a conclusion? And so on.
So, if the teacher focuses on what the state has been wanting for the last 3 years, but the state changes what it wants without informing teachers, then there's a problem.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

:: How could they not be prepared? ::

they were caught up teaching “American Social Issues” and “Human Sexual Activity” classes.