ACT Newsroom & Blog

In January 2019, ACT offered an opportunity to participate in the first-ever ACT Social and Emotional Learning Journey Program, offering schools and districts an opportunity to receive free ACT® Tessera® assessments. We asked if we could share their feedback regarding their experience.

The view from inside schools is clear: social and emotional learning isn’t an option, it’s a must-have. We are pleased to summarize the top five themes from this Journey experience.

Your Feedback on the SEL Journey Program

We've seen a huge increase in need for SEL in our school. In order for students to learn academically, they must be prepared socially and emotionally to learn. In order to address these issues, we need to develop a baseline of data to know if what we do is helping in this area. We test academics but currently have no instrument to assess SEL.

When we launched the ACT Social and Emotional Learning Journey program offer, we didn’t anticipate the overwhelming interest in the program. Within the first week, more than 100 applications had poured in. To date, 400+ schools have applied—with impassioned urgency—to participate in this program. Not only are we excited that so many educators recognize the importance of social and emotional learning, but we are also excited to read about what educators hope to accomplish using an assessment like ACT Tessera.

On the application form for the program, respondents were asked to share their thoughts about why they wished to participate in the program. This sample set of hundreds of educators—principals and counselors, mostly—provides a powerful window into the thoughts and concerns of those working closest with our young people.

Your Feedback on the SEL Journey Program

SEL is a cornerstone of our program and firmly believe in the relationship between SEL and academics. We are enhancing our program and need to find ways to track data points. We firmly believe that when students feel safe and supported, the academic achievement will follow. Students in crisis cannot learn.

My goal is to help each student become the best version of their self. We have wonderful students here who come from all different backgrounds and families. I want students to realize that their current situation does not define their future; they have the power and tools to do whatever they choose.

Heartfelt, anxious, empathetic, savvy, and optimistic, these mini-essays reveal in the aggregate certain key themes about the priorities for improvement perceived in middle and high schools across the United States. What are folks in the field focused on?

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Deborah S. Delisle, president and CEO of the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed), has joined the Board of Directors for ACT, the nonprofit organization that is a leader in learning, measurement and navigation programs worldwide.

Prior to her current position with All4Ed, Delisle served as executive director and CEO of ASCD, a professional community of more than 120,000 educational professionals. She has also served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education. During her federal tenure from 2012 to 2015 she played a pivotal role in policy and management issues affecting pre-kindergarten, elementary and secondary education, and oversaw 86 programs with a portfolio of nearly $26 billion.

Delisle’s earlier positions include serving as Ohio’s state superintendent of public instruction, superintendent of Ohio’s Cleveland Heights – University Heights City School District (CH-UH), and senior fellow for the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE). At ICLE she worked to enhance educator performance systems and create transformative school and district cultures.

During Delisle’s 40-year career in education, she has served as a teacher, gifted education specialist, curriculum director, elementary school principal, district associate superintendent, superintendent, state superintendent and university instructor. The Deborah S. Delisle Education Options Center was named in her honor by CH-UH in recognition of Delisle’s lifetime of service to students.

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The following blog is reprinted with permission from the Education Commission of the States. The blog originally appeared on Ed Note.



I went to school in a rural area, surrounded by cornfields. Our high school mascot was even named the Greenwave in honor of the landscape. I was fortunate in that, despite its rustic surroundings, my school was located in a larger town. That meant that more amenities were available — not just more grocery stores and other shopping options, but also greater education opportunities. For instance, while I had the opportunity to take advanced courses in high school, students in rural communities only a few miles away were not as fortunate.

Many years have passed since I attended high school, yet rural communities—defined by the National Center for Education Statistics as settled areas with fewer than 2,500 people—still lag non-rural areas in access and opportunities. A new report from ACT, in collaboration with ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning, Rural Students: Technology, Coursework and Extracurricular Activities, examines rural high school students’ access to technology—both internet and devices—and rigorous coursework.



Drawing on survey data from more than 6,000 high school students, the report finds that rural students have either less, or qualitatively worse, access to technology than their non-rural peers. For example, rural students were less likely than non-rural students to rate their home internet access as “great” (36 percent vs. 46 percent) and more likely to rate it as “unpredictable” (16 percent vs. 9 percent). Rural students also had less access to devices at home and school and reported using technology less often to conduct research or complete homework assignments.

Rural students in our survey were also less likely to take or plan to take advanced-level courses that offer opportunities to earn college credit, such as Advanced Placement or dual enrollment programs. For instance, 60 percent of non-rural respondents had enrolled in some type of credit-bearing college course, compared with 50 percent of rural students. When rural students in our survey participated in a dual enrollment course, they were more likely than non-rural students (24 percent vs. 13 percent) to take an online course, where having adequate technology is crucial to meaningful participation. The disparities in access to technology thus compound the course access issues that rural students face.

Based on the survey results, our report makes the following three recommendations:

• Improve rural students’ access to technology both at school and at home. Rural students have a better chance of accessing and succeeding in rigorous online courses if all schools have quality broadband access; the federal E-rate program, which funds access to affordable broadband internet in rural areas, can help.
• Increase opportunities for rural students to take rigorous courses. Students in rural areas were less likely than non-rural students to complete (or plan to complete) the highly rigorous ACT-recommended curriculum (76 percent vs. 81 percent), which includes a minimum of four years of English, three years of mathematics, three years of science and three years of social studies. Increasing the number and type of courses available to rural students can help close this gap.
• Expand rural students’ opportunities to receive personalized learning. Providing rural students the opportunity to receive personalized, student-centered learning can help them achieve greater success in advanced coursework. Policymakers may wish to investigate state and local options for extending personalized learning opportunities to rural areas.

While differences will always exist between rural and non-rural schools, providing equitable technology access across all schools is a necessary step toward ensuring equitable learning opportunities for all students.

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“What job opportunities will my children have in the future?”

“What job opportunities will I have in the future?”

Questions such as these have been frequently posed to us over the past year in response to the recently released, Ready for What? report. Predicting what the labor market will look like in the near and far future is a popular topic; lately, the predictions have focused on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on careers.

More than an academic exercise, choices by many individuals about one of the largest and most important investments of their lives – their education – are based on these predictions. These predictions matter, especially as the cost of four-year degree programs continues to outpace wage increases. Therefore, it is not only critical that these estimates are accurate, but that they are able to capture the labor market returns for different education and career pathways.

There is a consensus among labor market researchers and policy makers that the best career advice for individuals is to continue their education after high school and to earn a postsecondary credential, preferably a four-year degree. However, in broadening our collective definition of career success beyond a four-year degree, the advice imparted does not reflect the most current research findings and often discounts a still-viable credential: the much-maligned liberal arts degree.

As commonly portrayed, liberal arts degree holders have no definable career path, low lifetime earnings, and little to no skill transferability to growing industries and occupations. Long-held critiques about the labor market value of liberal arts degrees have had a lasting, detrimental impact with students and their decisions about postsecondary education. Benjamin Schmidt’s recent analysis of 2017 IPEDS completion data reveals a significant decline in the number of individuals completing a liberal arts degree since the Great Recession. This downward trend has not stabilized despite an economic recovery and is consistent across races, gender and type of institution.

In other words, the data suggest that the perceived lack of labor market value for liberal arts degrees is manifesting into prospective students voting with their feet.

Do earnings data support such perceptions? The median annual earnings for workers with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts ($52,000) is significantly higher than for individuals with either an associate’s degree or some college ($40,000) or those with only a high school diploma ($34,000). For the 41% of individuals with a liberal arts degree who also earn a graduate degree, their earnings are 33% higher than those with just a bachelor’s degree.

It is true that, in an absolute sense, liberal arts degree holders don’t earn as much as graduates in STEM, healthcare or business fields. However, by the time workers are in their 30s and early 40s, there is only a very small earnings gap (2%) between liberal arts majors and those with the same degree but with a different major.

But what career pathways are open to those who earn a liberal arts degree? Despite popular anecdotes about the job prospects for holders of liberal arts degrees, most graduates are not forced into positions with little or no room for advancement. Analysis of online resume data has documented several well-defined career pathways for liberal arts graduates transitioning into higher-responsibility, higher-paying roles over time.

In a labor market constantly reshaped by technological change, flexibility of skillsets within and across career sectors is key for both workers and those who would employ them. Skills acquired as part of a liberal arts degree, such as critical thinking and creative problem solving, are transferable to seemingly unrelated, more technical fields. A recent study of LinkedIn data by Alice Ma found that liberal arts graduates outpaced technical graduates in joining the tech sector by 10% between 2010 and 2013, with software development being the third most popular job for recent liberal arts graduates.

The evidence is clear: a liberal arts degree is a viable education option for individuals seeking good long-term wages with strong connections to multiple career pathways across a variety of industry sectors. But what about the future labor market?

According to noted economist, Larry Katz, a broader grounding in multidisciplinary liberal arts can ultimately protect individuals from future job losses due to potential outsourcing or new technology. The critical thinking and creative skills developed in such programs, he argues, cannot be replaced by AI technology but instead will be the main drivers of technological innovation. Integrating and emphasizing such skillsets across education programs is critical for preparing individuals for future jobs.

The value of education in the future labor market will be agnostic to a credential and instead focus on skills. And those that are core to a liberal arts curriculum will be in the greatest demand. From that perspective, the future of the work does not seem as daunting for those interested in a liberal arts education.

References

• The State of the Humanities 2018: Graduates in the Workforce & Beyond
• Three Educational Pathways to Good Jobs
• Get a liberal arts B.A., not a business B.A., for the coming artisan economy
• Ready for What? Development of a Hierarchical Framework Linking College Readiness and Career Readiness
• You Don’t Need to Know How to Code to Make it in Silicon Valley
• Price Of College Increasing Almost 8 Times Faster Than Wages
• The Humanities Are in Crisis
• Saving the liberal arts: making the bachelor’s degree a better path to labor market success
• New Jobs That Didn't Exist Before And Pay 50 Percent More

The following press release is reprinted with permission from the American Board of Preventive Medicine.

Chicago, IL, February 22, 2019 – The American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM) is pleased to announce its selection of ACT® ProExam as the vendor who will perform the Practice Analysis for the ABPM’s Core Initial Certification Examination (the “PA”).

The ABPM will be working with ACT ProExam to conduct a structured PA which will reflect the knowledge, skills and competencies required to practice preventive medicine in the United States. The PA will emphasize the overlap in knowledge, skills and competencies collectively required by the ABPM’s Diplomates who practice in the specialty areas of Aerospace Medicine, Occupational Medicine, and Public Health and General Preventive Medicine. When completed, the PA will delineate the clinical and professional practice of preventive medicine and will specifically reference the tasks, competencies, and knowledge required of a physician to successfully practice preventive medicine in the current health care environment in the United States.

In announcing its selection of ACT ProExam, the ABPM’s Board Chair M. ‘Tonette’ Krousel-Wood, MD, MSPH, said “While the primary goal of the PA is to update the blueprint and outline for the ABPM’s Core Initial Certification Examination, we are confident that the PA will provide the foundation on which the ABPM can work with its Specialty Societies as well as the ACGME in revising program requirements and curricula that will better serve the physician population practicing preventive medicine in the United States.”

Sandy Greenberg, PhD, ACT ProExam’s Vice President for Credentialing Advisory Services, said “At ACT ProExam, we view our clients as partners in a shared endeavor, and strive to establish and maintain a rich and responsive dialogue in support of each client’s needs and goals. We believe this approach will best serve the ABPM in successfully updating its blueprint and outline for its Core Initial Certification Examination.”

Founded in 1959 with the launch of the ACT® test, ACT now supports learning throughout a student’s lifetime. In 2017, ACT merged with Professional Examination Service (ProExam), which has been providing consultative services to credentialing organizations since 1972, to form ACT ProExam. ACT ProExam has a proven track record working with clients in a wide variety of professions, including health and allied health.

The American Board of Preventive Medicine is a Member Board of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). Founded in 1948, ABPM works with the ABMS in the development of standards for the ongoing assessment and certification of over 12,000 physicians certified by the ABPM in the specialties of Aerospace Medicine, Occupational Medicine, and Public Health and General Preventive Medicine; and in the subspecialties of Addiction Medicine, Clinical Informatics, Medical Toxicology and Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine.

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About ACT

ACT is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. Headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa, ACT is trusted as a leader in college and career readiness, providing high-quality assessments grounded in nearly 60 years of research. ACT offers a uniquely integrated set of solutions designed to provide personalized insights that help individuals succeed from elementary school through career.

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IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACTNext™, the multidisciplinary innovation arm of ACT, Inc., today announced it has been awarded a cooperative agreement grant to explore and enhance student engagement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

ACTNext/ACT assessment developers, psychometricians and researchers will work in cooperation with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), American Institutes for Research (AIR) and RTI International on this one-year project.

“We are very honored by the trust placed in us by NAEP to help accomplish this important goal,” said Alina von Davier, ACT senior vice president for ACTNext.

The research team will be investigating the NAEP 8th grade Science and Technology and Engineering Literacy assessments to determine whether there are particular types of tasks and items that are challenging for engagement in students. The research team will then develop engagement-enhanced features closely modeled on the most recent NAEP test, followed by an evaluation of the effects of these features on students’ engagement and performance.

Yigal Rosen, senior director of learning solutions at ACTNext, will be the research program director for the team. He will be aided by Vanessa Simmering, senior research scientist at ACTNext, in leading the project.

About ACT

ACT is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. Grounded in 60 years of research, ACT is a trusted leader in college and career readiness solutions. Each year, ACT serves millions of students, job seekers, schools, government agencies and employers in the US and around the world with learning resources, assessments, research and credentials designed to help them succeed from elementary school through career. To learn more, visit www.act.org.

About ACTNext

The ACTNext research team, comprised of leaders working on innovative solutions that advance individuals throughout their lifetimes, is passionate about making a difference. ACTNext integrates interdisciplinary research in computational psychometrics, machine learning, and multimodal analytics to deliver innovative learning and assessment systems to help people and organizations worldwide achieve education and workplace success.

About NAEP

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only assessment that measures what U.S. students know and can do in various subjects across the nation, states, and in some urban districts. Also known as The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP has provided important information about how students are performing academically since 1969. NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

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“The North Star shines with a humble brightness that belies its navigational importance.”
- Fraser Cain, Universe Today

ACT’s vision is to help more people learn, measure their progress and improve their navigation through life’s transitions.

That’s an ambitious goal for any organization, but certainly ACT has the advantage of building on nearly 60 years of research and assessment expertise to pursue a transformation to achieve that goal.

We are fortunate to chart our transformation course by using the ACT® Holistic Framework® , a guiding North Star, in our decisions about ACT’s future.

At its core, the framework is a deep and broad survey of what individuals need to know and be able (and willing) to do to achieve education and work success along the kindergarten-to-career continuum. The ACT Holistic Framework serves as an ideal North Star for our transformation. As we remain true to our mission of helping people achieve education and workplace success, the framework guides us in the opportunities we pursue in our journey to become a learning, measurement, and navigation organization.

Learning

In developing the ACT Holistic Framework, ACT’s research and development teams first established what is important to learn. They then conducted their analyses with an eye towards laying out how and why individuals can learn, as well as when that learning could best take place.

As a result, ACT score reports will provide test-takers with feedback that goes beyond a “single direction”—and certainly well beyond the days when traditional results offered feedback such as: “needs improvement.”

ACT can embed diagnostic information into assessment score reports that, in some cases, contain links to curated resources that help remediate measured weaknesses. This opens the door to providing personalized recommendations for improvement, such as ACT® Academy™ and ACT® CollegeReady™, and intentionally positions ACT to move into formative and adaptive learning solutions.

Measurement

ACT was born from a revolution in standardized testing, and we will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of this important milestone this November. We are now in the midst of disrupting the industry again by illuminating the intersection of learning, measurement, and navigation.

Within the area of measurement, ACT is extending its psychometric expertise into new and improved ways of assessing achievement and providing real-time, actionable feedback. What we measure, as guided by the ACT Holistic Framework, will expand into cognitive capabilities, such as critical and creative thinking, and noncognitive domains, such as resilience, grit, and teamwork—skills that are essential to success in today’s schools and the workforce.

If having more precise and timely guidance on how improving skills in certain areas would make the difference in whether or not a student pursues their aspirations, wouldn’t it make sense to get clarity on that as early as possible?

The ACT Holistic Framework supports this kind of evaluation of an individual’s learning progress. And, as the saying goes, what gets measured matters most. ACT’s focus on learning and navigation builds on that maxim.

Navigation

What are the best courses to take for a rewarding career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)?

What should an eighth-grader consider when choosing courses for their freshman year of high school?

What kind of credential should a returning veteran obtain to reenter the job market?

Providing answers to questions such as these is why ACT undertook the development of the ACT Holistic Framework in the first place—to broaden the impact of research-based insights over time. Only now ACT is poised to provide them earlier and more often, when they matter most.

Education and career navigation is all about how you achieve your goals. At the heart of the ACT Holistic Framework, the focus is on the critical transitions in the school-to-work journey.

ACT’s focus is on helping students, teachers, counselors, job seekers, and employers with comprehensive navigation tools and resources to help make strategic decisions in pursuit of their goals as they make their way from kindergarten to career.

Our Path Ahead

As ACT focuses on becoming a learning, measurement, and navigation company, ACT is using the ACT Holistic Framework to guide its transformation path.

Clearly, it serves as ACT’s North Star for organizational development and has become part of our DNA for innovation and creating new solutions.

Interested in this blog? Read more.

• The Holistic Framework as ACT’s DNA: How Research and Product Line Management Work Hand in Hand
• Applying the ACT Holistic Framework to College and Career Readiness: From Research to Action
• ACT Holistic Framework Offers a Path to Personalize Education
• Marten Roorda Talks “Transformation” on Smart Sparrow’s Learning Nerds Podcast
• Think ACT Is Just a College-Admissions Test? Think Again

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