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IOWA CITY, IOWA—ACT, Inc., a national leader in college and career readiness assessment, announced today it intends to invest in ProExam, a not-for-profit organization focused on noncognitive assessment and professional credentialing, with a merger between the two organizations expected in 2018.

“Education and workplace success require a holistic set of skills, including cognitive and noncognitive skills,” said ACT Chief Executive Officer Marten Roorda. “This investment will allow ACT to tap into ProExam’s expertise in noncognitive assessment, credentialing and consulting. Our goal is to connect noncognitive assessment, which ProExam understands as well as anyone in the world, to all ACT programs, since such skills are essential to people’s future success. We look forward to adding our own value as we work to expand and enhance ProExam’s offerings.”

Cognitive skills relate to mental activities, such as thinking, reasoning, understanding and remembering, while noncognitive skills involve interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies such as tenacity, responsibility, teamwork and leadership.

“We are thrilled ACT is investing in our organization so that together we can help people develop the full range of skills that can help them enhance their lives,” said ProExam Chief Executive Officer Robert Block. “We are eager to begin working with ACT.”

ProExam will remain a separate entity for at least a year, after which a merger between the two not-for-profit organizations is anticipated. Collaborative work between ACT and ProExam will begin as soon as the investment is finalized.

ProExam is known for its Tessera™ next-generation K-12 assessment system, which measures six noncognitive skill and character strength sets. In addition, the organization has developed a comprehensive suite of digital tools for the credentialing market, including ProExam Vault, a secure web-based platform for issuing, managing and sharing digital credentials and micro-credentials as open badges. ProExam has been a market leader working with sponsors of global credentialing programs for more than 50 years.

ProExam’s Center for Innovative Assessments, led by Vice President and Chief Scientist Richard D. Roberts, conducts both basic and applied research. The Center identifies business- and education-relevant noncognitive skills and develops techniques and procedures for measuring and enhancing these abilities.

Prior to the anticipated merger, ProExam will be an ACT-affiliated company. After the investment takes place, ACT will assume governance of ProExam and will work closely to leverage the expertise, talent and passion of the ProExam team.

ProExam’s offices are and will remain located in New York City.

About ACT

High school students are our next generation of voters. In the coming years, they are going to help shape public policy, but their views are often overlooked because most of them are currently not eligible to vote. To address this lack of information, in December ACT surveyed a sample of students who took the ACT® test, asking them about their engagement with and concerns after the 2016 presidential election.

A new ACT issue brief, The Next Generation of Voters: A Sample of Student Attitudes after the 2016 Presidential Election, summarizes the findings.

We found that most students were engaged with the election: 67 percent reported following the news coverage very or fairly closely. However, their most popular news source was social media (72 percent), suggesting that work to help students identify “fake news" is critically important.

After the election, the majority of students reported feeling more concerned about a number of topics including race relations (72 percent) and college affordability (62 percent); while half reported feeling more concerned about getting a job. Less than 13 percent of students reported feeling less concerned about any of the topics after the election. Further, only about half (49 percent) of the students reported that discussions in their classroom about the election were always or almost always respectful.

The high levels of concern, particularly related to equity issues, indicates that educators and parents need to find a way to talk with their students about current issues and teach students how to engage in these discussions in a productive manner that does not interfere with student learning. The survey also suggests that civics and media education are needed to help students gather the information that is shaping their opinions.

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IOWA CITY, Iowa—Starting in 2018, ACT will begin offering students the opportunity to take the ACT® test in the summer. The first ACT summer test date will take place in July 2018, increasing the number of national ACT test dates from six to seven.

“Students, educators and colleges have told us they would like to see an extra test date prior to early admission and application deadlines, and we have listened,” said ACT Chief Commercial Officer Suzana Delanghe. “This additional test date will allow students to focus on their coursework while they are in school and prepare for the ACT test during the summer.”

While the majority of current ACT test centers are located in high schools, most July ACT test centers will likely be located on two- and four year college and university campuses, as many high schools across the country are closed or operate with very limited staff in the summer months.

Registration for the new July test date will open in early 2018. More information on test center locations will be available at that time.

About ACT

IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT has selected Fulbright Korean-American Education Commission (KAEC) as the sole administrator of the ACT® test in South Korea. Under this agreement, ACT tests will be administered by Fulbright, with ACT’s oversight, at a single agreed-upon site. For the April test date, the location is the Korea International Exhibition & Convention Center (KINTEX) near Seoul.

“Fulbright has significant experience with high-stakes test administration and international testing programs,” said Suzana Delanghe, ACT chief commercial officer. “We are eager to begin working with a Korean institution on administration of the ACT test in South Korea.”

The KAEC was established as a non-profit educational organization by a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and the Republic of Korea. Also widely known as the Korea Fulbright Commission, the organization is governed by a board of directors consisting of equal numbers of Koreans and Americans representing government, education and the private sector. Fulbright has administered a number of different high-stakes academic testing programs and is experienced in high-volume test administrations.

The move follows the successful administration of the ACT test this past December at a single test site directly monitored by ACT staff in Seoul. Previously, the ACT test had been administered by various vendors across South Korea. The move was made to address test material compromises in the country and strengthen ACT’s ongoing commitment to provide a fair testing environment for all students.

“Our move to a single test site in December proved to be successful in the ways that are most important to us and to test takers—quality, security and access,” said Delanghe. “We are confident that this new arrangement with Fulbright will enable ACT to maintain improved test security and fairness while ensuring access to the ACT as well as delivering a high quality experience to test takers.”

The next ACT test in South Korea will be on April 8, 2017. The registration deadline for that test is March 3. Registration and additional information about the ACT test for international students can be found on ACT’s website.

The ACT test is accepted for admission by all U.S. four-year colleges and universities and more than 225 universities across the globe. Many colleges also use ACT scores for course placement, merit scholarship eligibility, and advising purposes.

The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century.

—John F. Kennedy, A Nation of Immigrants

America has always been a nation of immigrants. As the CEO of a company that works to support individuals and their pursuit of education and workplace success, I am alarmed and concerned by the actions taken by the President’s executive order this past weekend to restrict the entry into the United States of certain immigrants. Some are seeking refuge from the devastations of war, while others are in fact U.S. residents, but in nearly every case they are simply seeking to advance a better life for themselves, their families, and our nation.

Of the more than 1 million international students currently enrolled in U.S. postsecondary institutions, approximately 17,000 come from countries in the current immigration ban. Many of those students are understandably confused about what their futures may hold. And beyond these questions about their future education and career opportunities is also the potential “brain drain” that could impact U.S. companies in the long term and which should be equally alarming to us as a nation. An estimated 35% of all foreign students in the U.S. are pursuing degrees in STEM fields, and upon graduation many of them will likely be offered jobs with some of America’s largest tech firms: Apple, Microsoft, Google, DuPont, Exxon-Mobil, and Dow, to name just a handful. Because of the recent executive order, the contributions of these graduates to American innovation and economic competitiveness are now seriously in question.

As many companies around the world know, diversity breeds innovation and innovation breeds business success. Our own company benefits from the commitment of immigrants and foreign nationals—myself included—to helping individuals around the globe and here in the States achieve college and career success.  ACT is building for the future, and as we innovate to improve our own solutions and the measurement industry as a whole we will rely on talent from across the globe. This weekend’s immigration actions will have serious implications to the way we attract the best and brightest from around the world; without them we can’t bring about the required innovation to fix the American education system. We need help from outside the U.S. to find new ways to remedy our serious achievement and skills gaps. We are proud of our employees and the innovative culture that people from varied cultures and counties bring to ACT, and we are stronger because of our diverse culture. Being inclusive is one of our guiding principles.

Denying entry to people who have much to add to the country and who are often already here legally for work and education purposes runs counter to the ideals of a country founded by immigrants seeking safe harbor and sanctuary from foreign oppression. Creating blanket blockades of individuals from certain countries is not a formula to solve America’s immigration and security issues – we can and must do better than what we’ve seen this weekend.

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Students who answer the free, online ACT Question of the Day will now be given access to complimentary resources designed to help them improve their academic skills in the covered topic area.

The enhanced ACT Question of the Day, which is accessed through the ACT Profile service, will allow students to improve their skills by watching short instructional videos, taking quizzes to diagnose areas where improvement may be necessary, and completing additional “next step” review options and video suggestions at their convenience.

The resources will be provided through OpenEd, a company that was acquired by ACT in May. OpenEd provides educational resources to teachers across the U.S. These resources include videos, games, assessments, homework assignments, and lesson plans. Now the most relevant and helpful of those resources will be available to students preparing to take the ACT.

ACT will continue to provide students with retired questions from real ACT tests on each ACT Question of the Day.

“This integration allows us to better serve our customers and fulfill the needs of students searching for a trusted, no-cost option for improving their skills as they prepare to take the ACT,” said Rich Patz, CEO of ACT Assessment Technologies. OpenEd is part of the ACT Assessment Technologies group. “ACT acquired OpenEd to intelligently connect our valuable research and assessment expertise to top notch learning and instruction, and this integration is a perfect example of how we can blend resources that will address individual learning needs and help students improve their readiness for the ACT and beyond.”

Students who answer an ACT Question of the Day incorrectly will have the option to improve their skills by clicking on links to instructional videos that appear below the question window. After viewing the videos, students can complete a short assessment to test their understanding of the concept. Based on their answers, they will be offered “next steps” designed to help improve their understanding.

ACT Profile is a free, mobile college and career planning platform that offers personalized information to help individuals as they navigate through life’s key decision points.

OpenEd utilizes standards-aligned open-source resources that pull educational materials from a variety of sources.

“This integration will benefit students by pinpointing problem areas and providing customized instruction on topics they have yet to fully grasp,” said Adam Blum, CEO of OpenEd. “We are so excited to marry our technology solutions and expertise with ACT’s highly valued test prep resources to create a free, personalized learning experience for students.”

Across the United States, nearly 4.5 million K-12 students are English language learners.

From 2004 to 2014, the percentage of public school students participating in programs for English learners increased from 8.8 percent to 9.3 percent. That represents an increase of about 240,000 students in a decade—including a jump of more than 60,000 during the 2013-2014 school year.

You’ll find the highest proportion of English learners in kindergarten, at 17 percent. California alone has 1.4 million English learners, 22.7 percent of the statewide student population.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics the languages English learners are most likely to speak at home are Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese—and at least 30,000 speak Vietnamese, Hmong, Haitian, Somali, Russian, or Korean.

And in the case of one family I know very well, three of these in English Language Learners class speak Dutch.

Whatever their linguistic backgrounds, we want all students to succeed, but too often a lack of language familiarity interferes with students showing what they know.

Consider a quick math quiz:

What is 24 divided by 6? I’m certain you know the answer: 4.

Now, "¿Qué es 24 dividido por 6?" Do you still know the answer?

Finally, what if I had asked this question first: “什麼是24除以6?” Are you still sure?

Your math skills didn’t change as I asked the questions, but the languages did. If I try enough languages, at some point your lack of fluency will override the skill being measured—your facility in math.

When educational measurement is “confounded” by extraneous factors, validity is lost. Even Einstein would struggle with math problems written in languages he had never encountered.

Using the language of psychometricians, the net result is a false negative. In words we can all understand, it’s simply not fair.

To enable more students to demonstrate their abilities, starting in the fall of 2017 ACT will offer supports for qualified English learners in the United States taking the ACT. These supports will include limited additional time to take the test, the use of an approved word-to-word bilingual glossary (containing no word definitions), test instructions provided in the student’s native language (limited languages at first), and testing in a non-distracting environment.

Most importantly for these students, the test results will be college reportable.

To do well on the math test, students will still need to know math. Similarly, they will also need to need to know English, Reading, and Science, the other subjects covered on the ACT.

In English, the test measures usage, mechanics, and rhetorical skills; it’s not a vocabulary test. A bilingual glossary helps even the playing field, but does not define the words on the test.

For example, if you were a Spanish speaker learning English you may not understand the word “rhetorical” but you would likely understand the Spanish word “retórico.” The glossary doesn’t define “rhetorical.” It only clarifies the word is one you already understand in your native language.

ACT’s move to better support English learners is consistent with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which calls for educators to help students whose difficulties in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language may deny them the ability to meet challenging academic standards, achieve in classrooms where the language of instruction is English, or participate fully in society.

We’re proud to be the first major assessment organization to offer the English learner supports I’ve described. We hope others in our profession will follow our lead.

The bottom line for ACT is not about being first, but about being fair to the nearly 5 million students across the United States whose first language is not English, including three young children who sit at my kitchen table—mostly speaking Dutch—each and every evening.

All students deserve the opportunity to show what they know. Starting next fall, with the ACT, they will.