Counselor Newsletter

After years of supporting and empowering the American College Application Campaign (ACAC) from the American Council on Education (ACE), the ACT Center for Equity in Learning, which focuses on closing gaps in equity, opportunity and achievement for underserved populations and working learners, will oversee and continue to expand the campaign.

ACAC is a national initiative led by leadership teams in 50 states plus the District of Columbia that seeks to increase the number of students from low-income families and first-generation college students who pursue a postsecondary degree, and to help those students navigate the college application and admissions process.

ACAC state teams work to remove barriers that may prevent underserved students from applying to a postsecondary institution by ensuring that all high school seniors at participating schools have the support they need to complete an application to at least one two- or four-year postsecondary institution. The campaigns are run independently in each state, with public and private entities organizing the effort with guidance and technical assistance from ACAC.

Dr. Jon Berry, Department Coordinator of World Languages at Mount Carmel High School in Chicago, recently shared his experience after attending the ACT Certified Educator Basics training program. Here is a highlight:

“Our jobs are not defined as ‘ACT Teachers,’ and no classroom activity gets more criticized than ‘teaching to the test,’—and rightly so. Secondary education is, and should be, much more than a summative test taken several times during a student’s junior and senior year. Furthermore, it is impossible to take students who have not been exposed to a strong curriculum or who have performed poorly in whatever curriculum they have experienced, who lack a strong foundation in the language, math, and scientific reasoning skills that are assessed on the ACT test, and magically transform them into high-performing ACT students through nothing more than practice tests and a crash course on fundamentals.

“So the question is, and always has been: ‘How do I improve my students’ ACT scores and readiness for college when I am just one in a long line of instructors, when I am teaching subjects that are not specifically assessed on standardized tests, and when my own interests go deeper than the proper use of a comma or using the correct word in the correct place?’"

Read more about Dr. Berry’s recent experience in attending an ACT Certified Educator workshop in Illinois and how he is helping his students prepare for the future.