Illinois Schools Adjust to Delays, Mishaps by Test Company

School districts across Illinois have scrambled to reschedule test dates and review test materials in response to a series of delays and problems with their statewide assessment—setbacks that state officials blame on the contractor hired to produce and deliver the exams.

At least 126 of the state’s 896 districts have sought to change the time when they administer the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, or ISAT, the mandatory annual exam for students in grades 3-8.

Illinois state Superintendent of Schools Randy J. Dunn blamed the state’s testing vendor, Harcourt Assessment Inc., for the problems, which he said included delays in sending tests and answer documents to districts, exams with missing or repeated sections, and a toll-free troubleshooting number that offered school officials little or no help. Students were scheduled to take...