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State education managers are continuing with SAGE testing despite calls from Utah lawmakers to press pause on the computer-based student assessment.
After meeting Thursday to discuss SAGE, school board members said they want to review testing options, but did not delay the 2015 tests.
"The tests are going to be administered this spring," board Chairman David Crandall said. "Just because a couple senators put out a press release doesn't mean we're changing."
Earlier this week, Republican Sens. Howard Stephenson of Draper and Aaron Osmond of South Jordan urged the state school board to suspend SAGE testing. The lawmakers criticized software glitches, insufficient school resources and concern from parents and educators about testing at the expense of instructional time.
Stephenson and Osmond suggested the state switch to the Northwest Evaluators Association testing system, which was used by some Utah schools during a pilot program before SAGE was developed.
"The current SAGE test must be suspended immediately," Stephenson said on Monday. "Our children are basically being used as beta testers for a test that is not ready for primetime."
Utah students took SAGE tests for the first time last spring. The tests are designed to adapt to the ability of individual children and cost the state roughly $40 million in a contract with provider American Institutes for Research.
Board member Dixie Allen said the Northwest assessment would likely not be a suitable replacement for SAGE because of differences between the test and the state's core standards for math, English and science.
She said the board considered adopting the Northwest Evaluators Association test after the success of Utah's pilot program, but the test's designers were unwilling to alter the test to fit the state's needs.
"NWEA was not willing to change their testing to align with our core curriculum," she said. "If they had been, we may have looked at them differently."
State Superintendent Brad Smith said the state Office of Education is reviewing issues with the initial rollout of SAGE. But switching to a new test could be more disruptive to schools than working to address problems with the current system.
"It's better that we learn and improve while maintaining some continuity for some period of time than yet another assessment or yet another accountability system," he said.