ACT to set voluntary resignations; future cost-cutting measures loom

[cigaretteman]

Iowa City test company to provide no pay raises next year

ACT Inc. of Iowa City (The Gazette)


Iowa City-based standardized test company ACT will enact a series of cost-cutting measures, including voluntary resignations, the company said Thursday.

Other cost-cutting measures include no pay raises for next year and voluntary hour reductions or leaves of absence.

ACT also said in a statement it will reduce some “fringe benefits.”

Any employee who voluntarily resigns will receive severance pay, the company said.

ACT spokesperson Tarah DeSousa did not comment on whether these cost-cutting measures include any non-voluntary layoffs.

“This is an evolving situation, with various scenarios that we are monitoring closely,” DeSousa said in an email.

ACT also announced future cuts are “expected.”

Further details were not made available.

ACT also announced a change in leadership Thursday. Marten Roorda, chief executive officer, will leave the company. Janet Godwin, chief operating officer, will be the interim CEO.

Godwin has been with the company since 1990, including almost six years as chief operating officer.

The testing company has about 800 employees in the Corridor and about 1,100 employees total. Most of those employees are eligible for voluntary resignations, DeSousa said.

ACT had to postpone its national testing date in April because of the coronavirus pandemic and also has seen “a significant decline” in district and state testing programs.


The company will offer testing in June and July, with fewer test locations and with social distancing precautions in place.

https://www.thegazette.com/subject/...ns-future-cost-cutting-measures-loom-20200528

 

[NDallasRuss]

I just got an email about 20 minutes ago that the daughter's June 13 testing was cancelled and that they opened a July 18 date. She's been practicing and preparing for this, and now she's got to wait another month.

So I go in to make the change and find there are far fewer test sites listed, the closest of which are already booked up. So we've got to drive an hour away to the closest test site we could get.

And it's not just a simple date/location change. I had to sign her up for a new test, and pay for it, and they'll refund us for the cancelled test. So they were able to get my money twice for one test.

I've generally defended the standardized tests because I think they're an important part of the admissions process when there are SO MANY applicants for every school now. The Common App, along with the waivers for application fees for poor people, has made it real easy for students to shotgun out college applications to a bunch of different schools - that's a different thread altogether! But I don't like ACT making us pay twice for a test. I tried to call them, and they're not answering calls. You get a recorded message, and then the call's done.

/rant.

 

[NDallasRuss]

I just got an email about 20 minutes ago that the daughter's June 13 testing was cancelled and that they opened a July 18 date. She's been practicing and preparing for this, and now she's got to wait another month.

So I go in to make the change and find there are far fewer test sites listed, the closest of which are already booked up. So we've got to drive an hour away to the closest test site we could get.

And it's not just a simple date/location change. I had to sign her up for a new test, and pay for it, and they'll refund us for the cancelled test. So they were able to get my money twice for one test.

I've generally defended the standardized tests because I think they're an important part of the admissions process when there are SO MANY applicants for every school now. The Common App, along with the waivers for application fees for poor people, has made it real easy for students to shotgun out college applications to a bunch of different schools - that's a different thread altogether! But I don't like ACT making us pay twice for a test. I tried to call them, and they're not answering calls. You get a recorded message, and then the call's done.

/rant.

Man, this has really become a PITA!

I found out yesterday that the daughter's July 18 test site was closed for the COVIDs. I hustled this morning to find an open site in central VA that would require staying overnight the night before, so I changed her registration. Now I got a message that that test site is now closed also. I'm now trying to check WV, MD, and PA to see if there are any open sites with available seats. Otherwise she's got to wait until September to (hopefully) take it.

Not only that, but it looks like her senior year will be spent with 100% distance learning, so I'm sure that'll go well - since the teachers have never been trained to effectively teach in that environment, and when they tried it for the 4th quarter of this last year, there wasn't much teaching being done.

I feel really bad for her. This sucks!

/follow-up rant

 

[hawkifann]

I have a rising junior, so I hear you. We'll be heading into the testing madness. I would hope SAT and ACT are working on a viable remote test, as the AP organization did this year. The best online learning my kid had in 4th quarter were in his two classes that had AP tests.

I'm cautiously optimistic about online learning for this fall. The devil, was always, will be in the details, but I have a rising 4th, rising 8th and rising 10th and I saw little experiments and tweaks from teachers for all three of them last spring. The biggest thing missing in the 4th quarter (and I think this was pretty universal) was accountability. The grades for the younger kids don't really matter that much and my oldest was given the option of keeping his already pretty good grades, so he did and outside of 1 class he was just really interested in and his 2 AP exam classes, he mailed the rest in. Can't have that for all of 2020-2021.

Our school board had a meeting today and there are 3 proposals on the table:
A) Full in-person learning with health screenings for transportation and school. I really don't think this is practical for our district (especially when the HS had 3700+ students last year).

B) Full online learning. Pros for safety and distancing, huge cons for no interaction with fellow student and less direct contact with teachers.

C) 3 week rotations - 2 weeks online, 1 week in class. It's not perfect, but this would allow teachers to plan things such that they're having regular contact with students and the students get some actual classroom interaction with other kids. We'll see where this goes.

 

[GOHOX69]

They made good money when the going was good. Absolutely no sympathy, sorry. And now, most schools don't want the crap act and sat tests.

 

[OrlandNole]

They made good money when the going was good. Absolutely no sympathy, sorry. And now, most schools don't want the crap act and sat tests.

Standardized tests were already beginning to fall out of favor. Now that we're in the middle of a social reckoning, I imagine that the elimination of racially-biased tests will be accelerated.

 

[NDallasRuss]

I have a rising junior, so I hear you. We'll be heading into the testing madness. I would hope SAT and ACT are working on a viable remote test, as the AP organization did this year. The best online learning my kid had in 4th quarter were in his two classes that had AP tests.

I'm cautiously optimistic about online learning for this fall. The devil, was always, will be in the details, but I have a rising 4th, rising 8th and rising 10th and I saw little experiments and tweaks from teachers for all three of them last spring. The biggest thing missing in the 4th quarter (and I think this was pretty universal) was accountability. The grades for the younger kids don't really matter that much and my oldest was given the option of keeping his already pretty good grades, so he did and outside of 1 class he was just really interested in and his 2 AP exam classes, he mailed the rest in. Can't have that for all of 2020-2021.

Our school board had a meeting today and there are 3 proposals on the table:
A) Full in-person learning with health screenings for transportation and school. I really don't think this is practical for our district (especially when the HS had 3700+ students last year).

B) Full online learning. Pros for safety and distancing, huge cons for no interaction with fellow student and less direct contact with teachers.

C) 3 week rotations - 2 weeks online, 1 week in class. It's not perfect, but this would allow teachers to plan things such that they're having regular contact with students and the students get some actual classroom interaction with other kids. We'll see where this goes.

The daughter's school is giving two options: 100% distance learning, or 2 days in-school (1 day in each class) with 3 days of a different kind of distance learning (where they're given assignments to complete, with teachers available for questions, not live learning). We're still trying to see whether each of her classes are offered via one method or the other, or both.

For the ACT, I ended up changing her ACT to a test site in rural WV (population 298). WV seems to have a really low # of COVID cases. My hope is this site is a lot less likely to close. The down side is that it's 5 hours away, so we'll be travelling for that.

 

[NDallasRuss]

They made good money when the going was good. Absolutely no sympathy, sorry. And now, most schools don't want the crap act and sat tests.

I don't know that it's that most colleges don't want them, I think it's more that so many test dates/sites are being cancelled that they've made test scores optional as part of the application.

I still think that with as many kids as apply to college, the more positive information you can provide, the better off you'll be. It certainly seems that it'd be better than leaving holes in the application - required or not.

 

[NDallasRuss]

Standardized tests were already beginning to fall out of favor. Now that we're in the middle of a social reckoning, I imagine that the elimination of racially-biased tests will be accelerated.

I don't know enough to know if they're really racially biased, but I do know that it's skewed heavily in favor of kids whose parents can afford to pay for all the books, tutors, classes, etc.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

I don't know that it's that most colleges don't want them, I think it's more that so many test dates/sites are being cancelled that they've made test scores optional as part of the application.

I still think that with as many kids as apply to college, the more positive information you can provide, the better off you'll be. It certainly seems that it'd be better than leaving holes in the application - required or not.

Does she need the ACT? I thought she already took the SAT and did well?

That sucks kids have to drive and stay overnight - just more stress the student doesn’t need.

 

[NDallasRuss]

Does she need the ACT? I thought she already took the SAT and did well?

That sucks kids have to drive and stay overnight - just more stress the student doesn’t need.

She's taken both the ACT and SAT back i her sophomore year. While she did pretty well, it was more for the practice, and her scores aren't what they'd presumably be now that she's going into her senior year - particularly in math, now that she's had calculus. Based on her practice, she should be able to show pretty good improvement (fingers crossed).

I'm hoping she'll be okay with the travel. The plan is to take a half day and drive down in the afternoon, so we can get settled in at the hotel and grab some dinner so she can still be on a somewhat normal schedule. Plus, the route takes us through the mountains and the forests, so it should be a pretty scenic drive.

 

[DogBoyRy]

I don't know enough to know if they're really racially biased, but I do know that it's skewed heavily in favor of kids whose parents can afford to pay for all the books, tutors, classes, etc.

They are skewed to students who can answer the questions.

 

[NDallasRuss]

They are skewed to students who can answer the questions.

That's very true. The more resources you can put into practice and preparation, I think the more questions you're likely to get right. It might not matter on a grand scale - like it's not going to make your ACT go from an 18 to a 30. But on a smaller scale, it could help you go from a 32 (missing 5-6 questions per section) to a 35 (missing 1-2 questions per section). That's a considerable jump from the standpoint of what colleges see. And if you can afford to pump a couple of grand into getting your kid ready, it could pay off bigly.

 

[GOHOX69]

That's very true. The more resources you can put into practice and preparation, I think the more questions you're likely to get right. It might not matter on a grand scale - like it's not going to make your ACT go from an 18 to a 30. But on a smaller scale, it could help you go from a 32 (missing 5-6 questions per section) to a 35 (missing 1-2 questions per section). That's a considerable jump from the standpoint of what colleges see. And if you can afford to pump a couple of grand into getting your kid ready, it could pay off bigly.

I always thought the ACT was subservient to the SAT. That the SAT was used by more selective colleges/universities and the ACT was used by places attended by the poors.

 

[NDallasRuss]

I always thought the ACT was subservient to the SAT. That the SAT was used by more selective colleges/universities and the ACT was used by places attended by the poors.

We've been looking at a lot of top tier colleges and all of them accept either.

I always thought it was more of the liberal arts colleges that preferred the ACT, but I don't think that's currently the case.

 

[GOHOX69]

We've been looking at a lot of top tier colleges and all of them accept either.

I always thought it was more of the liberal arts colleges that preferred the ACT, but I don't think that's currently the case.

I went to college in the 80's. I'm guessing much has changed