Special Education News in Brief

ACT Streamlines System for Special-Needs Students

By Catherine Gewertz — May 31, 2016 1 min read
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ACT Inc., which has been criticized for making it hard for students to get accommodations on its college-entrance exam, announced last week that it is taking steps to make the process easier.

With the new system, students will register online for the test and work with a school counselor, or someone else, to request accommodations online, ACT said. The system will ask that a student submit “only the documentation needed for the student’s particular diagnosis, eliminating the need to send unnecessary support materials,” ACT said.

The company said that, based on pilots it has conducted of the new system, students should be able to receive answers to their accommodations requests 10 days sooner, on average. But ACT spokesman Ed Colby said that while the new system is intended to make the system easier to use, the ACT doesn’t anticipate that it will result in more approvals of requested accommodations.

A version of this article appeared in the June 01, 2016 edition of Education Week as ACT Streamlines System for Special-Needs Students

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