Education Week - October 29, 2014 - 11

STATES HELP EXTEND REACH OF
COLLEGE-ENTRANCE EXAMS
PD ONLINE COURSES
make it easy and
Nearly half of all states-and many districts-now
pay for public school students to take either the ACT
or SAT college-admissions tests. A few of those states,
such as Illinois and Arkansas, permit districts to opt
out of the testing. In Alaska, students can decide
whether they want to participate in the tests.
SOURCE: ACT Inc., College Board
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States where ACT is administered to all
public school 11th graders
States with district-optional ACT policies
State with student-optional ACT policy
States where SAT is administered to all public
school 11th graders
State with student- and district-optional
SAT policy
INTERACTIVE.
IN-DEPTH.
SELF-PACED.
als are concerned about the broadening
use of the exams.
"That's not how the tests were
created. The tests were created to
determine preparation for collegelevel
material," said Mr. Fuller, who
is director of student recruitment at
the University of Houston. "To pin
this to teacher performance or evaluation
or how districts or schools
are performing ... is not how they
were written."
He said college-entrance exam results
should be just a piece in any
broader evaluation.
Alignment Needed
Paul J. Weeks, the vice president
of client relations for the ACT, essentially
concurred on that point. He
said that the ACT test can be used
appropriately for other purposes, as
long as it is aligned with the state's
academic standards and is only one
factor in an accountability plan or
graduation requirements.
"It can be an important part of a
puzzle, but never should be used as
a sole criterion," he said.
College Board officials declined
any comment on expanded use of
the SAT.
More research is needed on using
both tests for ways other than they
were designed, said Lauress Wise, a
principal scientist with the Human
Resources Research Organization in
Seaside, Calif. "I just would like to
see a little closer study that there is
an alignment between what we are
asking teachers to teach and what
we are measuring by way of holding
schools, teachers, and students accountable,"
he said.
Laura Perna, an education professor
at the University of Pennsylvania,
said statewide ACT and SAT testing
could be one way to address the current
mismatch between high school
and college expectations, but there
can be unintended consequences to
using the scores in various ways. "We
need to think carefully about what
is the right test and if we need more
than one," she said.
While Minnesota state officials
believe new statewide ACT testing
scheduled for 2015 will strengthen
the state's assessment system, not
everyone in the state agrees.
Michelle Volk, a school board
member in the Lakeville Area Public
Schools, just south of Minneapolis,
said districts should be able to
set their own graduation standards
and opt out of the ACT. "It was a
surprise to many districts," Ms. Volk
said of the legislation requiring the
ACT as a graduation requirement.
Most states that contract with the
ACT have required all students to
take the exam.
Some students who have no interest
in college may just turn in blank
tests, Ms. Volk said, since there is no
minimum cut score. She has crafted
a resolution that will go before the
Minnesota School Boards Association
in December to add a proposal
to loosen the ACT mandate to MSBA's
lobbying agenda.
For their part, ACT officials say
they have not run into this opposition
elsewhere and that students
generally take the exam seriously.
"It is really seen as a great equalizer
from an opportunity and access
standpoint," said the ACT's Mr.
Weeks.
For many states, the deciding
point will come in the spring when
the common-standards testing consortia
officially roll out their collegeand
career-readiness assessments.
Missouri is among those states
that have already opted for the college-admissions
tests. The state decided
in January to use the ACT for
its 11th grade college- and careerreadiness
measure rather than the
new Smarter Balanced assessment.
Michael J. Muenks, the coordinator
of curriculum and assessment in
the state office of college and career
readiness, said the reason for the
choice was that the ACT was understood
by the stakeholders, and parents
felt it was a better return on
investment: "It had buy-in."
Special coverage on the alignment
between K-12 schools and postsecondary
education is supported in part by a
grant from the Lumina Foundation, at
www.luminafoundation.org. Education
Week retains sole editorial control over
the content of this coverage.
EDUCATION WEEK | October 29, 2014 | www.edweek.org | 11
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Education Week - October 29, 2014

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