After technical glitch, South Carolina students can choose ACT or SAT next year

Starting next spring, South Carolina's 11th-graders will have a choice between the ACT and SAT for their mandatory college entrance exam — and some families might be inclined to make a switch after this year's ACT was marred by technical difficulties and delays.

The ACT's new web-based testing platform hit some snags in South Carolina in February and March. Students saw their computer and tablet screens freeze as the testing timer ticked on, forcing some schools to administer makeup tests either online or on paper.

Four months later, some rising seniors are still waiting to find out their scores.

"My oldest son took it in late winter, and we still haven’t received grades back," said Katie Brown, the mother of a rising senior at West Ashley High in Charleston. "We have to put our kids' college applications in starting in August and September, and we don’t have any ACT scores."

According to S.C. Department of Education spokesman Ryan Brown, the change in state law allowing the SAT as an alternative is not related to this year's technical difficulties with the ACT. Instead, it's meant to let students choose the test that best fits their strengths and post-graduation ambitions.

State education officials blamed this spring's testing glitch on an overload of the testing company's web servers. But Ed Colby, a spokesman for ACT Inc., blamed the problem on school districts' computer systems and on an Amazon Web Services outage that took place Feb. 28, the first day of the online testing window in South Carolina.

"It was not specific to South Carolina or to ACT," Colby said. "It was an unfortunate situation over which ACT had no control."

The S.C. Department of Education said in an April 26 memo that it was urging the makers of the ACT to "accelerate score reporting" and provide an updated timeline to families for when they would get results.

Today, most scores for students who took a paper version of the ACT have been delivered. But scores for some tests administered online may not be available until July 14. Other students, who required accommodations that will make their results non-reportable to colleges, will get their scores by July 31.

Robert Schaeffer, public education director for the testing watchdog group FairTest, said the delays seen in South Carolina are not unique. His group has tracked reports of computerized testing failures since 2014.

"It's less an ACT problem and more one that we’ve seen when states go to computerized testing," Schaeffer said. "The vendors rush the technology into place because of marketing reasons before their systems are ready for prime time.

"In state after state we’ve seen computer crashes, tests not being administered properly. ... A number of states have penalized or fired the testing contractors. It seems to be an industry-wide problem."

With the change in 11th-grade testing requirements next school year, South Carolina could become a battleground state in an ongoing war between two testing titans seeking to grow their share of the $1.7 billion-a-year testing industry.

The College Board, makers of the SAT (formerly known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test), will once again have a fighting chance against ACT Inc., formerly known as American College Testing.

The ACT surpassed the SAT in total number of test-takers for the first time in 2012. The ACT has made inroads partly by inking contracts with state education departments.

"The ACT very shrewdly understands that you can get much more volume quickly by selling wholesale to entire states rather than retail to parents one at a time," Schaeffer said.

South Carolina taxpayers have paid for all 11th-graders to take the ACT and a career readiness test, ACT WorkKeys, since 2015. Now some of the state's $28 million testing budget will go to pay for SAT tests instead.