MN statewide student testing to restart Thursday

A day after technical problems led Minnesota education officials to suspend statewide student testing, the Education Department Wednesday said the glitches are fixed and testing will resume Thursday.

Officials also said they will give districts two extra days to test students on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments. The testing window was set to close May 8.

Students across the state faced delays up to an hour Tuesday morning when they tried to take their MCAs. More problems popped up in the afternoon. Similar woes last week were caused by a server malfunction at Pearson, the state's testing contractor.

Earlier today, Pearson blamed a "malicious denial-of-service attack" and an overloaded processor for problems Tuesday that led to the state suspending MCA testing. Pearson apologized and said the system had been repaired.

Late this afternoon, Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said Pearson is confident that there won't be any similar disruptions for the rest of the testing season.

The attack "was not an attempt to steal student data; rather, it was intended to disrupt testing," she said in a statement. "Pearson has assured us that at no point was any student data at risk or compromised."

Officials say the technical problems have not affected the 400,000 tests that have already been completed.