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IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT today announced the four national winners of the 2017 ACT College and Career Readiness Campaign, which highlights the exceptional achievements of students, schools and employers championing college and career readiness in their communities.

This year’s four National Exemplars—selected by a national committee of education and workforce leaders from across the U.S.—are:

• Jayne Hanna, Nunivak Island, Alaska—National Student Readiness Exemplar (High School Senior)
• Immokalee High School, Immokalee, Florida—National College and Career Transition Exemplar (High School)
• Early College Academies at Butler Community College, Rose Hill, Kansas—National Career Preparedness Exemplar (Postsecondary Institution)
• Martco, LLC (RoyOMartin), Alexandria, Louisiana—National Workplace Success Exemplar (Employer)

Hanna received a $4,000 scholarship for being named the National Student Readiness Exemplar. In addition, all competing student exemplars in each participating state received a $500 scholarship, which increased to $1,000 for the four student semifinalists.

The National Exemplars were chosen from four semifinalists in each campaign category: high school senior (Student Readiness Exemplar), high school (College and Career Transition Exemplar), postsecondary institution (Career Preparedness Exemplar), and employer (Workplace Success Exemplar).

“We’re delighted to celebrate the remarkable achievements of all 130 of our state exemplars across all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” said Scott Montgomery, senior vice president of public affairs at ACT. “In particular, we congratulate our four National Exemplars for advancing college and career readiness for all, while embodying valuable principles of perseverance, ingenuity, problem-solving, and educational equity.”

The four National Exemplars will be recognized and awarded at ACT’s annual corporate meeting on October 19, 2017 in Iowa City, Iowa, which will wrap up this year’s campaign.

Learn more about the ACT College and Career Readiness Campaign.

About ACT

2017 ACT College and Career Readiness Campaign

IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT today named 16 national semifinalists for the 2017 ACT College & Career Readiness Campaign, which celebrates individual and organizational efforts to advance college and career readiness for all.

The semifinalists include four exemplary individuals and organizations from each of the four categories recognized by the campaign: high school seniors (Student Readiness Exemplars), high schools (College & Career Transition Exemplars), postsecondary institutions (Career Preparedness Exemplars), and employers (Workplace Success Exemplars).

“These semifinalists are an encouraging group of innovators and problem-solvers who seek success in college and career readiness for everyone in their communities,” said Scott Montgomery, senior vice president of public affairs at ACT. “We hope their stories serve as enlightening examples of what is being, and what can be done to shape the education and career landscape for years to come.”

This year’s 16 semifinalists are:

High School Seniors
Jayne Hanna (Alaska)
Wyatt Tauber (Minnesota)
Alyssa Bursott (South Dakota)
Jessica Diaz (Texas)

High Schools
Immokalee High School (Florida)
LEAD Academy High School (Tennessee)
Oakland Early College (Michigan)
George Washington High School (West Virginia)

Postsecondary Institutions
The University of Arizona (Arizona)
University of Alaska Anchorage, AHEC Program (Alaska)
Butler Community College (Kansas)
Western Nevada College, Jump Start College Program (Nevada)

Employers
McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. (Arizona)
Martco, L.L.C. (Louisiana)
Preble County Development Partnership (Ohio)
Goodwill of North Georgia (Georgia)

An ACT selection committee—comprised of ACT team members from different functional areas of the organization—chose the 16 semifinalists out of 130 state exemplars representing all four categories of the campaign. This year, all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated in the annual campaign, up from 41 participating states last year.

The campaign next will select four National Exemplars—one exemplar per category—to be recognized at an ACT event later this fall. National Exemplars are chosen by a National Selection Committee, comprised of education and workforce leaders from across the nation.
Following are profiles of each of the 16 semifinalists:

High School Seniors

Alaska
Jayne Hanna
Jayne Hanna is a master problem-solver and go-getter, particularly when it comes to keeping connected with her Robotics team, the Sunchasers. Jayne lives in the remote Alaska Native village of Mekoryuk on Nunivak Island—a long 150 miles away from her teammate in Bethel—which makes exchanging ideas, parts and fundraising goods extremely challenging. Jayne worked with community members and school sports teams to hand-deliver goods by bush plane from one community to the other, and used teleconferencing resources to update code and collaborate with her teammate. Despite having limited access to academic opportunities (Jayne is one of 11 high school students in her village) she has actively participated in team sports, speech and poetry competitions, and various student government roles and obtained college credits from dual enrollment since her sophomore year in high school. Jayne hopes to become an educator in rural Alaska to continue her love of learning and act as a role model for other Alaska Natives.

Minnesota
Wyatt Tauber

Wyatt Tauber is a motivated self-starter who developed his own computer repair service to hone his entrepreneurial and technological skills. Wyatt was disheartened by the lack of computer science opportunities in his remote community, so he took it upon himself to learn and develop the technical skills required to offer a local service to community members. He’s no stranger to outreach either. Wyatt helped organize multiple school-wide Hour of Code sessions with his FIRST Robotics team, developing a communication schedule and designing a curriculum that would generate interest and develop understanding of core STEM skills for students in elementary grades through high school. He is passionate about computer science, enrolling himself in online classes and pursuing an Associate in Arts degree. He is also studying for a Microsoft Technology Associate certification in security fundamentals. Wyatt has a five year plan that includes obtaining a B.S. in computer science from Worchester Polytechnic Institute and later an M.S. in computer security.

South Dakota
Alyssa Bursott

Alyssa Bursott has a knack for helping others, remaining dedicated to success, no matter the hardships she’s facing. When her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer the summer before her freshmen year, she took over running the family hobby farm—tending to cattle, harvesting hay and nursing calves—while her mother took care of her father. Throughout this difficult time, Alyssa maintained a perfect GPA, played varsity sports, and was actively involved in band. She pushed herself physically, intellectually, and emotionally, despite her difficult family circumstances. Alyssa has taken her drive and knack for helping others to the next level, earning dual enrollment and AP credits, participating in internship and research programs with local hospitals, and learning all that she can from the scientific community to one day become a neurosurgeon. She hopes to earn a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and someday work for the Peace Corps.

Texas
Jessica Diaz

Jessica Diaz has a passion for learning that surpasses cultural bounds or expectations. Growing up in a community where Hispanic women are not expected or encouraged to pursue postsecondary opportunities, Jessica was filled with doubt about her own abilities and will to reach her goals, often wondering if she could stack up against individuals of a more privileged background. However, she refused to let society dictate her future, and instead enrolled herself in all AP classes and challenged herself to learn all that she could in school. She is involved in an FFA program where she raises livestock, pursuant to her love of wildlife. She hopes to obtain a degree in fisheries and wildlife, with a concentration in wildlife conservation to better protect Earth’s ecosystems. She also hopes to pursue a master’s degree in the field of wildlife conservation.

High Schools

Florida
Immokalee High School

Immokalee High School offers a multitude of college and career readiness paths for students, including Advanced Placement (AP) courses, the Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) diploma, and career exploration opportunities through three National Academy Foundation (NAF) academies. Immokalee High School partners with community organizations like The Immokalee Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club to offer mentorship and academic support to students. Immokalee is the only high school in the state of Florida with a Migrant Center dedicated to supporting migrant students’ needs so they can be successful in school. Of the 1,723 students enrolled at Immokalee, 758 students are classified as migrant and 96 percent of enrolled students qualify for free and reduced lunch.

Michigan
Oakland Early College

Oakland Early College (OEC) advances a strong culture of academia and individuality, offering a high school and college world on the Oakland Community College campus. OEC requires all of their high school students to participant in dual-enrollment programs and earn at least 30 college credits prior to graduation, with many students earning Associate degrees or technical certificates from Oakland Community College. OEC’s FOCUS program teaches students a multitude of real-world skills to better prepare them for college and career. Students learn everything from time management and study skills to financial planning and resume-writing techniques. OEC connects students with internship opportunities that fit their career interests, organizes participation in mock interviews with community business members, and covers all college costs so that students can access any college degree or certificate pathway they desire.

Tennessee
LEAD Academy High School

LEAD Academy High School (first opened as a public charter school to serve students from low-income families) provides students with an academic program defined by rigorous curriculum and student-centered learning. In the 2014-2015 school year, LEAD Academy was named a Tennessee Reward School for producing student growth rates in the top 5 percent of all schools in the state. LEAD Academy’s student body is 93 percent minority and more than 90 percent of the student body qualifies for free and reduced lunch. Students at LEAD Academy are expected to pursue some form of higher education post-graduation. Throughout all four years of their high school career, students attend Seminar classes which prepare them for postsecondary success by instilling good study habits, time management skills, and a focus on literacy and college-level writing. Students visit 16-20 colleges by graduation to experience life on a college campus.

West Virginia
George Washington High School

George Washington High School provides students with a wide variety of curriculum choices, including honors classes in all core and many elective classes, 18 AP classes, virtual classes at the high school and college level, internships, and pathway and CTE programs. George Washington developed a staff-led mentoring program for students to ensure every student has the academic and social-emotional support to develop a plan for success after high school. Students in ninth grade can participate in a STEM class which culminates in a group project and a visit to local businesses. George Washington promotes a fair and equitable environment, encouraging students to lead clubs and participate in activities—like International Day— where diverse cultures and customs are explored and celebrated.

Postsecondary Institutions

Arizona
The University of Arizona

The University of Arizona is committed to providing all undergraduate students with opportunities to apply their learning to real world challenges and solutions through experiential learning activities, industry-sponsored projects, field-work, and personalized research experiences. The University of Arizona’s 100% engagement pledge makes certain that all undergraduate students will have a hands-on learning experience during their time at UA, ensuring they graduate ready to launch meaningful careers. UA’s holistic approach to education garnered an 82 percent retention rate for the 2015-2016 school year, with higher rates of retention for low-income students participating in financially-supported, cohort-based programs.

Alaska
University of Alaska Anchorage, AHEC Program

The Alaska Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) program at the University of Alaska Anchorage implemented the Behavioral Health Career Pathways Initiative in July of 2015 to engage and prepare high school students for careers in behavioral healthcare. Students from rural and underserved communities are recruited to participate in week-long intensive exploration camps that provide dual credit, Mental Health First Aid certification, and more, building awareness of mental health issues and transforming participants into mental health advocates. Since the program began, 83 percent of participants reported an increased interest in behavioral health and 95 percent reported an increase in knowledge of behavioral health, with 100 percent of program participants now certified in Mental Health First Aid.

Kansas
Butler Community College

Butler Community College created Early College Academies, a collection of career-specific cohorts where high school students can earn their Associate’s degrees in specific career and technical fields, earning dual credit and participating in job shadows and internships to prepare them for higher education and the workforce. Since inception of the program three years ago, 100 percent of Academy graduates have continued on to some form of educational placement the following fall. In 2015 and 2016, 82 percent of Academy students completed their Associate’s degrees just prior to high school graduation. That number is expected to increase to 90 percent for this year’s graduating class.

Nevada
Western Nevada College, Jump Start College Program

The Jump Start College Program at Western Nevada College promotes career success beyond academics, providing dual-enrollment opportunities for high school juniors and seniors from 14 (mostly rural) high schools across the state. The Jump Start College Program serves a large low-income and first generation population of students who are considered “at-risk” academically. In spite of this, 94 percent of students enrolled in the first year of the program passed their classes successfully, and 96 percent of second-year students passed their classes, compared to an overall course completion rate of 73 percent for Western Nevada College.

Employers

Arizona
McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., an employee-owned commercial construction company founded in 1864, believes that investing in their employees’ personal and professional development is a direct investment into McCarthy’s future. McCarthy offers a personalized training program and approach under McCarthy Build U, which focuses on a leadership framework and training solutions. McCarthy partners with local high schools and colleges to provide apprenticeship and internship opportunities and conducts and assists presentations and construction tours with local schools and campuses.

Louisiana
Martco, L.L.C.

Martco, L.L.C. dba RoyOMartin, is a forest-products and wood-manufacturing company known for its philanthropy, sustainable forest practices, and human resource development. RoyOMartin is committed to closing the workforce gap in Central Louisiana and seeks to do so by offering employees a compensation system that promotes self-directed learning and advancement, an internal leadership-development program focused on hard and soft skills, and scholarships for employees and their dependents. RoyOMartin also partners with high schools, technical colleges, and universities to prepare students with the technical and manufacturing skills they need to succeed in the workforce and in life.

Ohio
Preble County Development Partnership

The Preble County Development Partnership, Inc. (PCDP) is the county’s economic development department, formed to address community growth and development, and assist in job creation, business retention, community outreach, and workforce development. PCDP engaged local businesses and educational partners to work toward the ACT Work Ready Community Certification (Preble County is the only Certified ACT Work Ready Community in the State of Ohio), offering ACT WorkKeys assessments to all high school seniors in Preble County for the past two years, and promoting the value of a National Career Readiness Certificate, as well as ACT Job Profiling and WorkKeys assessment tools to local high schools and businesses.

Georgia
Goodwill of North Georgia

Goodwill of North Georgia, an independent and locally governed nonprofit established in 1925, operates retail stores, career centers and training programs to serve disadvantaged individuals across 45 counties of Metro Atlanta and North Georgia. Through partnerships with local school districts, college systems and employers, Goodwill offers a broad range of employment, training and support options, including job training, industry recognized credentials and dual enrollment opportunities. Last fiscal year, Goodwill connected over 20,000 North Georgians with work, and looks to increase their impact by 3,000 individuals this year.

Learn more about the ACT College and Career Readiness Campaign.

About ACT

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Angie McAllister, a leader in the burgeoning fields of personalized learning and analytics, has been named senior vice president of research at ACT. McAllister’s hire is the latest in a series of moves by ACT to advance its capacity in next-generation assessment and learning technologies.

“Education is at an inflection point where teachers can now use technology to personalize and propel learning,” said Marten Roorda, ACT’s chief executive officer. “Dr. McAllister’s expertise will be invaluable to ACT as we work with our classroom-based colleagues to make education more efficient and effective for students around the world.”

McAllister comes to ACT from Pearson, where she was senior vice president for personalized learning and analytics. She has earned several patents, including for technology that adapts digital learning experiences to the real-time needs of students. She has a provisional patent for using artificial intelligence to deliver personalized learning and analytics to learners and their instructors.

“One-size-fits-all education is a thing of the past,” said McAllister. “New technologies can help instructors deliver personalized instruction, whether it be in a middle school geometry class of 25 students or a college sociology lecture of 250. When students spend more time in their optimal learning zones, achievement can really take off.”

McAllister has also spent more than a quarter century in the classroom—as an elementary and middle school teacher in Florida’s Miami-Dade school district, urban Maryland, Japan, and England. She also served as a principal in Georgia and as an adjunct instructor at a number of colleges and universities.

At Pearson, McAllister led a collaboration with IBM to make Watson supercomputer technology available to college students and professors. Watson enables the creation of immersive learning experiences, and provides a way for students to seek help using “natural” language, not the language of a computer or its programmers.

“Teaching is both a science and an art, and educational technology can never be a substitute for a skillful and caring teacher,” said McAllister. “What technology does is give us powerful tools to reach students where they are, and the analytics insights to determine which tools and techniques are making the most difference to student success.”

McAllister earned her doctorate in educational leadership from Capella University, and her B.S. in elementary and early childhood education from Florida International University.

She will join ACT on April 24.

About ACT

IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT, Inc. has signed an agreement with BellCurve Labs, Inc., an international educational technology company with offices in San Francisco and Pune, India, to bring its workforce solutions to India. ACT® WorkKeys® and the ACT® Career Readiness Certificate®, widely used and respected in U.S. locations of international firms and major Fortune 500 companies, are designed to measure and certify foundational job readiness, helping link employers to qualified job seekers.

Under this agreement, BellCurve Labs will offer and administer ACT WorkKeys assessments in India. BellCurve Labs is both a developer and an aggregator of eLearning resources. In August of 2016 they chose India for the initial launch of their online learning suite—the most comprehensive line of eLearning tools on the global market. The inclusion of ACT WorkKeys assessments into BellCurve’s toolbox provides BellCurve Labs with a seamless battery of solutions that support lifelong growth and learning.

ACT WorkKeys assessments measure job-related skills such as applied mathematics, reading for information, and locating information. Individuals who meet benchmark scores on three core WorkKeys exams earn an ACT Career Readiness Certificate, verifying that they possess the skills employers deem essential to workplace success.

“ACT workforce certification will enable employers in India to confidently identify, select, and hire qualified candidates,” said ACT Chief Commercial Officer Suzana Delanghe. “The agreement between ACT and BellCurve Labs aims to help thousands of workers in India take advantage of new opportunities to improve their work lives and careers.”

“ACT workforce certification provides Indian employers with a standard upon which employees can be evaluated—not only domestically, but internationally as well,” said BellCurve Labs CEO Milind Joshi. “For employees, it helps define the path upward within the workplace—one based on merit and valid measurement, not guesswork. For students, the WorkKeys assessments can help identify basic strengths and weaknesses so that they can be best prepared when the time comes to enter the workplace.”

India has the world’s largest workforce, in excess of 500 million people. According to India’s Labour Bureau, 30 million workers are added to the Indian workforce yearly, but only 2 percent of those in the workforce are considered “skilled.”

In a recent feasibility study conducted by ACT among employers in Pune, approximately 90 percent of respondents said that workplace skills need to be assessed, while over 92 percent said that the skills assessed by ACT WorkKeys are important.

More than 2.2 million WorkKeys assessments are administered annually in the U.S., and over 3.6 million ACT Career Readiness Certificates have been issued since the credential was introduced in 2006. Presently, 15,000 US companies recognize WorkKeys Career Readiness certification.

About ACT

The release of the President’s budget blueprint for fiscal year 2018 has rightly prompted deep concern within the education and workforce development communities, not least for its cuts to programs that benefit low-income and underserved learners and job seekers. The blueprint cuts the budgets of the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education by 21 and 14 percent, respectively.

The cut in the Labor Department reduces funding for job training programs that benefit seniors and economically disadvantaged youth. The cut in the Education Department reduces federal work-study aid to college students and diverts 37 percent of the surplus in the Pell Grant program, which provides aid to college students in financial need, to other uses.

The blueprint also eliminates the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program; cuts Federal TRIO Programs by more than 10 percent; and cuts GEAR UP—a program long supported by ACT—by nearly one-third. These programs, either directly or through grants to states or organizations, assist economically disadvantaged middle and high school students prepare for, attend, and complete college. For example, in 2013, 75 percent of low-income high school graduates who participated in GEAR UP immediately enrolled in college, nearly ten percentage points higher than all graduates that year, and an astonishing 30 points higher than low-income graduates overall.

As Anthony P. Carnevale and others document in The College Payoff, the higher the level of educational attainment, the higher the payoff: bachelor’s degree holders can expect to earn more than 84 percent more than those with only a high school diploma. In addition, those with higher levels of educational attainment are more likely to pay more in taxes and less likely to rely on social services, which helps to support beneficial programs and services at the local, state, and federal levels. So why are programs that empirically benefit individuals and society being cut? Put simply, this is just not good business sense.

The mission of ACT is to help individuals achieve education and workplace success. Far from not helping, the President’s budget blueprint will actively harm. We add our voice to those of the many Republican and Democratic legislators who have voiced their strong opposition to the blueprint and its effects on the education and career preparation of many of the least fortunate among us. Students and job seekers of many ages rely on such services to fund their postsecondary pursuits, embark on a career, and ultimately find their way to realizing their goals.

I sincerely hope that the Administration rethinks its priorities and puts underserved students and workers first.

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Gunter Maris, a pioneer in statistics and learning theory, has agreed to join ACT as senior director of advanced psychometrics. As part of the ACT research and development group ACTNext, Maris will lead a team of research scientists located in both the Netherlands and the United States.

“Among his peers, Dr. Maris is considered the most significant innovator in the field of educational measurement,” said Alina von Davier, vice president of ACTNext. “His research into learning pathways, adaptive learning, and network psychometrics has the capacity to change not only our profession, but education around the world.”

In addition to advancing the science of psychometrics, Maris is known for upending accepted knowledge. Marten Roorda, ACT chief executive officer, said questioning assumptions may be key to making rapid advances in what is often perceived as the slow pace of educational improvement.

“As a society, we have been ‘stuck’ in our level of academic achievement,” said Roorda. “Through the work of researchers like Dr. Maris, we can now access and analyze student-specific information from virtually every step in the learning process. By personalizing education for each child, we can help millions of young people learn better and faster than ever before, and in doing so change the world.”

Maris currently is a professor of psychological methods at the University of Amsterdam and principal research scientist at Cito, an international assessment organization based in the Netherlands. His research focuses on theories of learning and individual differences, and the statistical methods needed to evaluate those theories.

Maris has published widely in scientific journals including in Science, Psychological Review, and Psychometrika. He holds a PhD in mathematical psychology from the Netherlands’ University of Nijmegen, and a Master’s degree in theoretical psychology from Belgium’s University of Leuven.

He will be joining ACT in June 2017.

About ACT

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Pak Chung Wong, Ph.D., chief scientist and project manager at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), is joining ACT as principal advisor on data science for ACTNext, the research and development center dedicated to developing ground-breaking learning and assessment systems.

In this newly created role, Wong will report to Alina von Davier, a globally recognized researcher in computational psychometrics and vice president of ACTNext.

Wong is an expert on extreme scale data analytics, visual analytics, visualization, privacy, security, and social computing. His research ranges from the impact of climate change on the electrical grid to the use of DNA to store data.

“During his two decades at PNNL, Dr. Wong made significant contributions to its mission of explaining the Earth and our universe,” said von Davier. “We are extremely excited to have a scientist with his skills advancing ACT’s research in education and workplace success.”

While at the PNNL, Wong and his colleagues implanted the lyrics from “It’s a Small World After All” into the genome of a bacterium. While seemingly whimsical, the work has practical applications. DNA is an extremely efficient storage medium, and has the potential to last thousands, and even millions, of years.

Wong earned his PhD in computer science from the University of New Hampshire. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and has received 10 U.S. patents.

In addition to his work at the PNNL, Wong is associate editor-in-chief of computer graphics and applications at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and an associate editor at the Information Visualization Journal.

About ACT