Michelle Davis

For the second year in a row, a handful of states experienced significant disruptions in online testing, creating such a high level of distrust with the technology-based process that some districts chose to revert to paper-and-pencil tests in an effort to avoid problems.

Florida, Kansas, and Oklahoma all suspended online testing at some point during testing windows in April because of computer glitches that led to slow load times or kicked students out of the assessment systems. Indiana districts reported problems during the week of April 21, as they did practice testing, but, as of mid-week last week, officials from the state's department of education reported that only one district was beset by significant glitches.

The fallout from the disruptions comes as many states are moving toward online testing -- some prompted by the expectation that assessments tied to the Common Core State Standards be given online by 2014-15. But publicity surrounding the breakdowns is creating a wariness about testing technology and its ability to operate successfully.

Few schools in the United States are more remote than the 18-student K-12 Qugcuun Memorial School in Oscarville, Alaska. Despite that isolation -- and despite the fact that the school has just three teachers on site -- the students at Qugcuun Memorial still have access to geometry and biology classes taught by highly qualified teachers, as well as up-to-date electives like digital photography.

Students owe that kind of educational access, in part, to the efforts of Dan Walker, 53, an assistant superintendent at the 4,000-student Lower Kuskokwim school district. He has steadily increased the number of distance-learning courses taught by certified teachers through the use of videoconferencing technology, the type of technology available to students and teachers even in the most remote areas of the district, and has strengthened the reliability and durability of the infrastructure that makes it all work. And he's done it with limited funds in a district where 90 percent of the population lives at or below the federal poverty level. "Technology becomes an equalizer for kids in these small, remote communities," Walker said.

"I saw the Internet and technology as a way to bring down those barriers and to get kids a broader experience and access to the wider world." Walker is proud of his district's 100-megabit Internet connection, which has come at a "tremendous effort" and costs about $20 million a year. But with reimbursement from the federal E-rate program, which helps provide connectivity to low-income districts, Lower Kuskokwim pays only about $2.5 million annually for the Internet services, he said.