ACT (nonprofit organization)

ACT, Inc. is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (NTEE classification B90, Educational Services, per the IRS), primarily known for the ACT, a standardized test designed to assess high school students' academic achievement and college readiness. For the U.S. high school class of 2016, 64 percent of graduates had taken the ACT test; the nearly 2.1 million students included virtually all high school graduates in 20 states.

Founded in Iowa City, Iowa, in 1959, the organization has more than 1,000 employees. Its CEO is Marten Roorda, who assumed leadership of ACT in 2015. Previous CEOs include Jon Whitmore (2010–2015), Richard L. Ferguson. (1988–2010), and Oluf Davidsen (1974–1988).

In addition to the ACT test, ACT programs include ACT Aspire, ACT Engage, ACT Kaplan Online Prep Live, ACT Profile, ACT QualityCore, PreACT, WorkKeys, and the National Career Readiness Certificate.

ACT was co-founded by University of Iowa professor Everett Franklin Lindquist in 1959. Lindquist earned his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1927, and then immediately joined its College of Education faculty. In 1929, Lindquist constructed the tests used for the Iowa Academic Meet, a contest to identify Iowa's top high school scholars. In 1935, Lindquist and his colleagues developed the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). In 1942, he introduced the Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED) for students in grades 9–12. Lindquist also used the ITED tests to help develop the Armed Forces Tests of General Educational Development, better known as the GED.

In 1958 at a conference sponsored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), Lindquist presented The Nature of the Problem of Improving Scholarship and College Entrance Examinations. Lindquist argued entrance examinations should evaluate students’ readiness to perform college-level work, and should therefore be tests of achievement and not of innate intelligence or aptitude, a clear challenge to the test then known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (now called the SAT).

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