RALEIGH — Earlier this year, state education officials proposed using the ACT college admissions test to measure the “postsecondary readiness” of 11th grade students statewide. Last month, however, State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison surprised many by tabling the idea.
Harrison suggested that the board would need to obtain legislative approval before approving its use formally, but the General Assembly is the least of the board’s concerns.
There is more to this issue than meets the eye.
The ACT and the SAT are the two primary tests used by colleges in the admissions process, although most college-bound North Carolinians prefer the SAT. Only 16 percent of graduates from North Carolina high schools took the ACT last year, the fourth-lowest percentage in the nation. If adopted, North Carolina would become the ninth state to give the ACT to nearly all graduates.
Every year, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction spends millions to create, administer, and analyze existing state tests under the ABCs of Public Education accountability program. During the 2008-09 school year, for example, our public schools spent more than $22 million on student testing services. In addition, education department staff just spent four years and millions of taxpayer dollars to revise the core curriculum and testing program under the Accountability and Curriculum Reform Effort or ACRE.
According to DPI staff, implementation of the ACT tests and an academic “boot camp” for poor performing students would cost an extra $20 million a year. Perhaps someone forgot to tell our state education agency that North Carolina has a $3.2 billion budget deficit.
I speculate that state officials also are reconsidering the statewide administration of the ACT because it would give North Carolinians a rare opportunity to make annual state-by-state comparisons. Currently, DPI develops all of North Carolina’s standardized tests in-house, a scheme that makes it impossible for parents and concerned citizens to compare our test results with those from other states.
In fact, critics of the state testing program should support a wholesale replacement of our state assessments with one or more national tests like the ACT. Results from the ACT would show that, by comparison, North Carolina’s homegrown tests are mediocre, at best.
More importantly, it may indicate that many of our students cannot compete with their counterparts from other states. We also may be able to compare public school students from North Carolina with students from foreign countries who take the ACT to gain admission to a college or university in the United States.
Overall, tests like the ACT may be an even better indicator of student performance than the excellent National Assessment of Educational Progress, federal reading and mathematics assessments taken by a representative sample of elementary and middle school students every two years.
Of course, North Carolinians should be concerned about the state’s decision to adopt the ACT test without exploring the market for alternatives. I have yet to find out whether the ACT expenditure would be subject to competitive bidding laws, but I am confident that other testing companies have asked state education leaders to examine similar testing products. Perhaps DPI and the State Board of Education would make a radical discovery — the free market could deliver a superior product at a lower price.
Teachers and administrators often complain that the state subjects children to an excessive battery of high-stakes tests. The ACT would exacerbate that burden at a time when many college-bound high school students are preparing to take SAT and Advanced Placement tests. Besides, if public school officials discover that an 11th grade student does not posses “postsecondary readiness,” it is too late in his educational career to do anything about it.
Dr. Terry Stoops is director of education studies at the John Locke Foundation.