SPRINGFIELD - State school officials, with the apparent blessing of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, approved a $45 million contract with a politically connected school testing firm despite the company having problems in other states.

In September 2004, the Illinois State Board of Education OK'd the four-year contract with Harcourt Assessment Inc., even though the Texas-based company had experienced well-publicized testing miscues in Hawaii, Georgia and Nevada.

On Thursday, Illinois school chief Randy Dunn said he plans to recommend canceling the state's contract with Harcourt because of widespread troubles with the company's distribution of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test.

"This vendor is going to be out of a contract in a few weeks if they don't fix the problem and fix it right away," said Dunn. "We aren't going to tolerate this."

The problems began surfacing last week when local school officials from every corner of the state began reporting they hadn't received the tests, which are a key yardstick in gauging the progress of more than 960,000 students in grades three through eight.

In some cases, school districts reported finding duplicated sections of tests.

In a press conference Thursday, Dunn said the state will work with Harcourt and local school districts to assure that testing is completed this year. But, he said the state also will ask for damages from the company in order to compensate state and local taxpayers for any added costs.

In the Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley school district in Central Illinois, for example, school officials had to pay overtime to workers to wait at the school last weekend when tests were not shipped to the school during work hours.

When the tests did arrive, fourth-graders taking the exam discovered at least one section was a duplicate of a previous section.

The Springfield school district announced Thursday it was delaying testing scheduled to begin next week because of the problems.

"Harcourt's failure to meet its requirements has caused huge problems for schools," Dunn said.

Harcourt issued a statement Thursday saying it regrets the delays, but believes the woes are coming to an end.

It said an internal review found a defect rate among the more than 1.2 million ISAT exams of less than one-tenth of one percent.

"We realize that the testing season is a busy and stressful period for schools under the best of circumstances and that these later delivery problems have caused significant hardship," the Harcourt statement noted.

The flaws occurring in Illinois are not new for Harcourt. Reports indicate Georgia education officials deemed the results of a 2002 standardized test invalid because of similar problems.

In Hawaii, just three months before Illinois officials picked Harcourt, school officials discovered missing pages and mistakes in instructions, according to a report in the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

Bob Shaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a test advocacy group, said the problems are being caused by a three-fold increase in the amount of standardized testing required by state and federal governments.

"The testing industry is stretched very thin," said Shaeffer. "Screw-ups like this are unfortunately bound to happen."

Dunn called the problems "stunning," but said the company's hiring was approved by members of the board and a superintendent who were appointed by Gov. George Ryan not Blagojevich.

"I'm not here to be in a position of trying to blame that board or to second guess. What I am here to say, it was not the present board that went forward with the Harcourt contract," Dunn added.

Nonetheless, the company was represented at the time by former Blagojevich campaign aide John Wyma, a lobbyist who has been at the epicenter of several lucrative state contracts since Blagojevich took office in 2003.

Before hiring Harcourt, the state board asked for and received concurrence from Blagojevich's office.

"I can't speak to what went on at that time," Dunn said. "This was the old state board of education. I have had no contact with John Wyma or anyone else."

State Sen. Bill Brady, a candidate for governor and a vocal critic of the state board of education, said the incident is another example of the problems Blagojevich has had in managing state government.

"Here you've got a close associate of the governor, a contract lobbyist, brought one of his pet companies in and what is the state of Illinois left with? Inefficiency and neglect," said Brady, R-Bloomington.

For now, Dunn said the goal of the state board is to get the testing on track so results are valid when they begin being analyzed this summer.

"Schools rely on these results," said Dunn. "It has tremendous consequences for hundreds of our schools."