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Education Week
Will States
Swap Standards-Based Tests for SAT, ACT?
By Catherine Gewertz
High school testing is on the brink of a profound shift, as states
increasingly choose college-entrance exams to measure achievement. The
new federal education law invites that change, but it comes with some
big caution signs and unanswered questions.
The questions are hanging over a provision of the Every Student
Succeeds Act that lets states measure high school achievement with
college-entrance exams instead of standards-based assessments.
If many states make that change, it would represent an important
national shift in the meaning of high school testing, assessment
experts say.
That's because most states' current tests are based on their academic
standards and are built to measure mastery of those standards. Moving
to a college-entrance exam such as the SAT or ACT, which are designed
to predict the likelihood of students' success in college, would mean
that states had chosen instead to measure college readiness.
"It's a really big shift," said Wayne Camara, who helped design the SAT
and oversaw research at the College Board for two decades before taking
a similar post at ACT in 2014. "States need to think about what they
want their accountability system to measure and choose the test best
suited for that. Ultimately, it's a judgment. It depends on what you
value most."
Many states offer or require the SAT or ACT statewide as a way to get
students thinking about, and applying to, college. But few use those
tests for the accountability reports that are required by federal law...
Read the rest of the article at Education Week
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