By Laura Katauskas | Bugle Staff
sweditor@buglenewspapers.com
@BugleNewspapers
Rather than stall students in their plan to take the ACT college entrance exam since the state is uncertain if it will fund it, the Valley View School District 365U is moving forward with the test this spring, whether or not it will be reimbursed.
VVSD has decided to sponsor an official ACT assessment for all of its juniors on April 19, at both Romeoville and Bolingbrook high schools. Valley View will pay for the entire assessment at nearly $75,000, unless the state resolves its budget woes and provides reimbursement for the assessment.
“We believe that taking a recognized college entrance exam plays a vital role in the post-secondary application process,” said Rachel Kinder, VVSD’s Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services. “The scores from this assessment can be used for a variety of purposes including entrance into a college, university or technical schools, as well as scholarship applications.”
News broke in December that, faced with a new law requiring the inclusion of a college entrance exam in the state’s testing cycle plus an expiring contract with the ACT, Illinois officials decided to contract with SAT instead of ACT for next school year.
ACT has filed a protest, but experts say the decision most likely will not be overturned.
However, students have been prepping for the ACT since October and to complicate the issue, a new SAT is being rolled out in March.
To complicate the matter even further, the budget crisis facing the state is leaving school districts wondering if any statewide assessment, SAT or ACT, will be funded by the state in 2016.
“It is imperative that we give all of our students an opportunity to take this exam at no expense to them or their families, especially with all the changes occurring with state testing at this time,” Kinder said. “The district will fund the ACT assessment this year and will make a determination on the plan going forward once we have additional information from ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education).”
If a student were to register on his/her own to take the ACT on a national test date, the cost would be $56.50 (which includes the writing portion of the assessment).
Kinder explains that the primary purpose of a college entrance exam such as the ACT or SAT is for college acceptance, acceptance into post-secondary training and scholarship opportunities.
“Traditionally, the ACT has been most widely used in our region of the country, however, most colleges will accept the ACT or the SAT as a recognized measure. It should also be noted that many colleges are moving to a test-optional admittance as they are relying more and more on other measures (GPA, courses taken, etc.) as predictors of success. This isn’t universal yet, so it is in our students’ best interest to have access to an exam at this time and for the foreseeable future,” said Kinder.
PARCC, the new recent state assessment for all grade levels, and ACT both are said to measure levels of “college readiness.” However, Kinder reports that many districts who gave the PARCC assessment to juniors did not see a close alignment to ACT scores with PARCC yielding a lower percentage of students who met proficiency levels.
While both the ACT and the SAT are accepted by most colleges and universities, the tests have always differed in format.
The ACT is a curriculum-based assessment whereas the SAT is based more on reasoning and verbal abilities.
In addition, in the past the ACT has been slightly less expensive at $39.50 or $56.50 with writing component.
However the new SAT is anticipated to better correlate with the new Common Core Standards which Illinois has adopted, and come in at a lower price, $54.50 with essay test.
In a comparison by The College Board, the new SAT, is based on the latest research on the skills while the ACT has not had any recent revisions.
The new SAT is also expected to offer more free practice including a new mobile app for daily practice and test prep through Kahn Academy with more than 4,000 questions and video lessons.
In addition, the testing schedule for SAT indicates an extra day offered compared to the ACT and more time to register.
For VVSD students, the ACT will be required and the SAT test will not be option for this year. However, the SAT will be in place next year pending state guidance.
Students do not need to sign up for the April 19 assessment.
It will be administered as part of their normal school day.