Illinois has decided to drop the longtime ACT college entrance exam given free to high school juniors and instead give 11th-graders the rival SAT exam, a test widely known on the East Coast but making inroads in the Midwest.
The decision sparked a formal protest last week from ACT, which could potentially derail a three-year, $14.3 million contract to the nonprofit College Board that provides the SAT, state records show.
Nothing is final until the protest process is resolved, but the potential switch to a new college entrance exam, after 15 years of juniors taking the ACT at school, has sent ripples throughout the Chicago region as districts try to solidify their spring testing schedules.
Complicating the situation is that Illinois still has no budget for statewide testing, prompting dozens of districts earlier this school year to sign up for ACT testing — at their own cost if necessary.
“We will take the ACT no matter what this year,” said Karen Warner, spokeswoman for Hinsdale Township High School District 86.
Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 also will administer the ACT this spring, spokeswoman Jennifer Delgado said. At the same time, the district is “looking forward to working with SAT,” Delgado said, citing resources, such as free test preparation, that will benefit students.
Amid the uncertainty, the College Board also is working with school districts that would like to administer the SAT as early as this spring. So a hodgepodge of districts could be taking the ACT or the SAT, or even both, and it’s not clear that all juniors — some 140,000 throughout the state — would be tested with a college entrance exam.
Controversy over a free college entrance exam for juniors has been simmering for a few years now; new Common-Core PARCC exams for grade school and high school were administered and the Illinois State Board of Education bumped the ACT from the roster of required state tests, instead making it optional in 2015.
High school districts balked, saying a free college entrance exam at school has been popular with students and parents and has been useful to kids applying for college. In the summer of 2015, a new law took effect that required a college entrance exam to be included in the state testing cycle. By that time, the ACT contract with the state had ended and a competitive process was launched for a new contract.
ACT’s competitor, the SAT, won the award, based on higher scores and lower costs in the evaluation, according to state records. The College Board’s proposal was $1.37 million less over three years than the ACT.
“We are delighted that, with this win, more Illinois students will benefit not only from an assessment that provides more information than ever before about a student’s readiness but directly links to resources that offer distinct opportunities to students such as free, personalized online test practice,” the College Board said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the ACT company filed a protest Dec. 15 with state procurement officials seeking to cancel the contract awarded to the College Board for several reasons, including claims that the College Board did not disclose current or pending litigation as well as inconsistent, biased or arbitrary scoring in the evaluation of the proposals.
State procurement officials say there could be several outcomes, from siding with the Illinois State Board of Education’s decision to award the contract to the College Board, or starting the whole competitive process over again.
ACT spokesman Ed Colby said it’s not the company’s policy to comment on specifics of the procurement process. “However, I can tell you that ACT is analyzing the submitted proposals and working within the process dictated by procurement requirements. We’re also working with individual Illinois schools and districts who utilize the wide range of ACT programs and solutions.”
Colby said more than 90 school districts in Illinois have signed up to administer the ACT this spring.
ACT has been overwhelmingly popular in Illinois. The most recent results for the graduating class of 2015 show that 157,047 test-takers from public and private high schools took the exam — the largest number of ACT test-takers of any state. Almost every Midwestern state showed high percentages of graduates taking the ACT.
In contrast, fewer than 6,000 graduates in 2015 in Illinois took the SAT, and in public schools only 3,963 students took the exam, according to the College Board.
The SAT has been popular in New England states and along the Eastern seaboard, but earlier this year the College Board won a multimillion-dollar testing contract in Michigan, making significant inroads in the Midwest. Illinois is an even bigger prize. Though few students have taken the SAT in Illinois, parents and students are well aware of the College Board’s Advanced Placement courses and exams, as well as the PSAT test that can qualify students for merit scholarships.
If the College Board prevails, students in Illinois will be taking a revamped version of the SAT, which debuts in March.
ACT and SAT exams produce scores that can be submitted to colleges and universities, and both can be taken for a fee on a national testing date outside of the school day.
While school districts have expressed support for the SAT, they remain aware of the popularity of the ACT. For years students have taken ACT precursor tests in junior high school and early in high school, or signed up for ACT prep classes after school or during the summer. That would lead to the actual ACT exam, which the state has paid for since 2001 as a way to get kids of all backgrounds on the path to college.
Patrick Nolten, who oversees assessment in the sprawling Indian Prairie School District 204 based in Aurora, said: “We don’t really have any issue with SAT. It is as well-regarded as the ACT in terms of the purpose it serves.”
However, “We’re sensitive to the fact that we have parents that have advocated for the ACT because they’ve spent time and resources preparing their students to take the ACT.”
Twitter @diane_rado
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