The Illinois State Board of Education recently announced that starting next spring, it will use the ACT exam rather than the SAT.
Both are standardized tests that measure students’ proficiency in core subjects such as English language arts and math. Both are also commonly used for college admissions – although many colleges and universities have stopped requiring them – as well as scholarship applications.
Illinois, however, also uses them as part of the battery of tests schools administer each year to meet federal mandates under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Results of those tests are reported each year on the Illinois Report Card and are used to hold schools and districts accountable for meeting basic academic standards.
Illinois started using the SAT with Essay as the state assessment for 11th grade students in spring 2017. Two years later, it began using the PSAT 8/9 exam for 9th grade students and the PSAT 10 for high school sophomores. Read the rest of the story by Peter Hancock on Capitol News Illinois.