Tag: ACT

Harvard Reverses Course, Brings Back Standardized Testing

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Harvard announced Thursday that it will bring back standardized testing requirements for the admission process.

The Ivy League school first dropped the testing policy in June 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and later announced in 2021 that it would extend the test-optional policy for four additional years, according to the Harvard Crimson. Hopi Hoekstra, Edgerley Family dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, announced that the requirement would return “starting with next year’s admissions cycle” and claimed that the reinstatement would bring “important information back into the admissions process.”

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Another Elite University Will Reinstate Standardized Testing for Admission

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Brown University

Brown University will reinstate a policy requiring standardized testing as part of the admissions process, according to a Tuesday news release.

First year applicants for next year’s admissions cycle will be required to submit standardized test scores, like the SAT or ACT, in their applications, according to the university news release. Brown suspended its testing policy in the summer of 2020 citing “unprecedented obstacles to testing” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Yale University Reinstitutes Standardized Testing in Admissions

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Yale University

Another elite university in the U.S. has backtracked on its decision to eliminate standardized testing in admissions after years of following the practice.

Yale University announced Thursday that it would be instituting a “flexible testing policy,” which allows students to submit several different test scores for admissions, including ACT, SAT, International Baccalaureate, and Advanced Placement scores, according to a Yale website. The university said that after performing extensive research, they found that “test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future.”

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Commentary: If Public Education Were a Business, It Would Be Bankrupt

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There has been, for some time now, optimism about a post-Covid recovery for American public school students, but sadly, there is no good news to be had.

Looking through a long lens, government-run education has been an enterprise rife with failure. The National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report in 1983 titled “A Nation at Risk,” which used dire language, asserting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.”

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ACT Test Scores Fall to 30-Year-Low

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A new report shows that the average high school student’s ACT college admissions test scores have fallen to their lowest point in 30 years, reflecting an ongoing decline in the quality of education in the United States after the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic.

As Fox News reports, the average scores for the American College Testing (ACT) exams have fallen for the last six years in a row, with the decline becoming noticeably faster in the years during and after COVID. The average score in 2023 was 19.5 out of 36, which comes out to a percentage of 54%. In 2022, the average score was 19.8.

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Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher’s DADDY Act Aims to End ‘Hunter Biden-Like Influence Peddling’

M.D. Kittle

As concerns mount about alleged Biden family pay-to-play schemes, U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher is introducing the  Deterring Attempts at Dirty Deals by Youngsters — or DADDY — Act.

The bill bans immediate family members of the president, vice president, and cabinet officials from working for certain foreign companies while their family members are in office.

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Florida First State to Accept Classic Learning Test as Alternative to SAT, ACT

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Florida has become the first state in the nation to officially accept the Classic Learning Test as an alternative to SAT and ACT, the latter of which are considered ideologically slanted to the left.

The legislation, signed earlier this month by Gov. Ron DeSantis, makes the exam eligible as an option for students seeking to qualify for state-funded scholarships to Florida colleges and universities. It also allows school districts to offer the CLT to 11th graders.

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Commentary: MIT Bucks the Trend and Reinstates Its SAT/ACT Requirement

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SAT multiple choice exam with a number 2 pencil

In case you missed it, on Monday MIT announced that they would be reinstating their SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles. Like many universities, MIT had ditched the tests during the pandemic.

Even prior to the pandemic, however, there had been a widespread push to abandon these tests to enhance diversity.

“Data shows tests like the SAT are biased against students from low-income households. Poorer students tend to perform worse on the test,” CNN reported in 2015. “Blacks and Hispanics also consistently score lower on the SAT than whites.” (CNN conveniently left out that Asian Americans score much higher than whites, presumably because it didn’t fit the narrative.)

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The Online SAT Will Be Shorter and Easier

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Woman on laptop

A common college admissions test, the SAT, will roll out its online version in the U.S. starting in March 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new test is reportedly expected to be easier, shorter and simpler.

The test will be reduced from three hours to two with shorter reading passages followed by single questions, while math problems will be less wordy with calculators permitted for every question, according to Priscilla Rodriguez, vice president of college readiness assessments at the College Board, the test’s operator and regulator, the WSJ reported.

“The digital SAT will be easier to take, easier to give and more relevant,” Rodriguez told the WSJ.

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Georgia Students’ Average ACT Score Rises, Beating National Average and Bucking National Trend

Bradley Vasoli

Nationwide, American College Test (ACT) scores are down, but Georgia high-school students are defying the trend and scoring higher than the national average, according to new data.

Peach-State students’ average composite score on all components of the college-entrance examination in 2021 is 22.6, compared with a 20.3-point average U.S. score—the lowest national mean in more than a decade. (The highest score someone can achieve on the ACT is 36.) This is the fifth year in a row when Georgians exceeded the national average ACT score.

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory Has Radically Transformed America’s Corporations and Public Schools

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People in the streets protesting

Just four weeks ago, I wrote about the rising resistance to the woke craze and critical race theory, and much has transpired since then.

Here in California, even Disneyland has not been spared the wrath of the crazies. On May 7, the incomparable Christopher Rufo reported that “The Wokest Place on Earth” now includes employee trainings on systemic racism, white privilege, white fragility, and white saviors, and also launched racially segregated “affinity groups” at the company’s headquarters.

But just five days later, Rufo disclosed that Disney “has removed its entire antiracism program from the company’s internal portal, effectively scrubbing it out of existence.” Rufo added, “This is a major victory in the war against ‘woke capital,’” and noted that a “significant backlash from the public” was responsible for the shift. While some skeptics suggested that the policy was being “tweaked or rebranded, not scrubbed,” Rufo responded, “Possibly, but small victories start to add up. We’ve set the precedent—and forced a $329 billion company to back down.”

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University of Tennessee, Knoxville to Require SAT, ACT Scores For Home-Schoolers, But Not For Public School Students Through Fall 2025

Corinne Murdock
Person filling in exam answers

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) will be test-optional until fall 2025 for all applicants – unless you were home-schooled. UTK will prohibit home-schoolers from capitalizing on their test-optional policy, as well as those students from schools that didn’t use alpha or numerical grading systems. UTK said their decision reflected a commitment to equity in a press release issued on Thursday.

The test-optional policy doesn’t mean that eligible applicants get a free pass entirely from admissions. According to the UTK admissions page, applicants that don’t submit their ACT or SAT scores will be considered a “test-optional applicant” and must submit an additional essay. However, the essay has less to do with academics and more to do with character – the current prompt this year asks applicants to recount an example of their leadership in a personal essay.

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University System of Georgia Reinstates ACT, SAT Requirement

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Reading and English exam booklet

The University System of Georgia is requiring for next school year’s round of admissions either ACT or SAT test scores from all applying students.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Get Schooled Blog reports that this is part of a larger push by the system to firmly return Georgia’s schools to the pre-COVID status quo.

The system said in a statement that it had “asked all campuses to plan for resuming normal operations for the Fall 2021 semester.”

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The Tennessee Star Report: Noah Tyler of Classic Learning Test Talks About Their Alternative to the ‘Progressive’ Influenced SAT and ACT Standardized Testing

Julie Carr

Live from music row on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy spoke to Chief Strategy Officer Noah Tyler from Classic Learning Test about their new approach to standardized testing.

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Tennessee Students Still Struggle After Common Core ‘Rebranded’

Beth Lear

  Students attending K-12 public schools in Tennessee are struggling to perform above average on national standardized tests. Partially adopted in 2010 and fully implemented by the 2013-14 school year, Common Core State Standards (CCSS) failed to produce the academic results expected. The Tennessee Department of Education and Governor Bill Haslam “rebranded” CCSS as Tennessee standards after the legislature passed a bill to repeal the Core in April 2015. “Common Core is as big a change in education as Obamacare is in health care, but unlike Obamacare it needed no votes in Congress to become national policy,” Joy Pullman, executive editor of The Federalist, wrote in her 2017 book, The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids. These controversial K-12 public education standards, “garnered practically no notice from the media before the Obama administration, in concert with largely unelected state bureaucrats and a shadow bureaucracy of private organizations, locked it in nationwide. That meant no public debate before the scheme was imposed upon a country supposedly run with the consent of the governed,” Pullman observed. Common Core State Standards were adopted in full or in part by the governments of 46 states beginning in 2009, the first…

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Lt. Governor Randy McNally Blasts Testing Firm ACT, Calls on Comptroller to Investigate

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Lt. Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) went public on Monday with a letter he sent to Tennessee Comptroller Justin Wilson on December 7, calling on him to open an investigation in college aptitude testing firm ACT, Inc. “Last week, I sent a letter to Tennessee Comptroller Justin P Wilson requesting an investigation of ACT Student,” McNally wrote on Facebook Monday morning, adding: An organization that is willing to sacrifice young people’s future over a bureaucratic error is not an organization Tennessee can trust. It is important that Tennessee parents and students have as much information as possible on the operations of ACT, Inc. At issue is the ongoing debacle surrounding a batch of test scores due to hundreds of students who are relying on the firm’s results to complete their college entry requirements. As The Tennessee Star reported last month, Bearden High School administered the test Oct. 17 with test booklets it received intended for Oct. 3. ACT has not responded to questions about how the incorrect materials were sent to the school, but says it can’t validate the scores because of the “mis-administration” and the theoretical possibility that students could have received test answers from others. Students have been directed to retake the test Dec. 9. “It’s…

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ACT Mishap Forcing Hundreds of Students in East Tennessee to Retake Test

Wendy Wilson

More than 400 students at a Knoxville high school are being asked to retake the ACT because of a testing mishap last month, reports WBIR Channel 10. Bearden High School administered the test Oct. 17 with test booklets it received intended for Oct. 3. ACT has not responded to questions about how the incorrect materials were sent to the school, but says it can’t validate the scores because of the “misadministration” and the theoretical possibility that students could have received test answers from others. Students have been directed to retake the test Dec. 9. Students are worried about missing deadlines for college admissions and scholarships. A handful of students received their scores from ACT, only to have them pulled by the testing company. In Tennessee, all juniors are to take the ACT, with retakes being offered in the fall of students’ senior year. The Knox County PTA and Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett have tried unsuccessfully to fight ACT’s decision not to certify the scores from Oct. 17. Candice McQueen, the state commissioner of education, submitted an appeal but it was denied. Others at the state level have also been notified of the situation. Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) told WBIR…

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EXCLUSIVE:  Rep. Sheila Butt:  Bill Focuses On The Success of Our Students

Laura Baigert

Rep. Sheila Butt (R-Columbia) told The Tennessee Star in an exclusive interview on Capitol Hill that HB 617, a bill she has sponsored in the current session of the Tennessee General Assembly, will improve options for high school testing in math and English language arts. “HB 617 is a bill which would allow local school districts to have the option of using the ACT or the SAT suite of testing in lieu of the end of course test, the TNReady test and the TCAP test, in the State of Tennessee,” Butt told The Star’s Laura Baigert. “This is a bill that focuses on the success of our students and this is a tried and true measurement of college readiness and college success.  And all of our districts should have the option of being able to use these tests for their students,” she added. “Local Education Agencies – As introduced, authorizes LEAs to use the ACT, ACT Aspire, or SAT suites of standardized assessments instead of the TCAP, TNReady, and end-of-course exams to test the subjects of math and English language arts for grades nine through 12,” the Tennessee General Assembly website says of HB 617 (introduced in the Senate as SB…

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