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The opportunity to participate in these assessments will be the only state-funded path to administer the EXPLORE/PLAN for the 2013-2014 school year. Test administration must take place between September 16 and November 8, 2013. School districts are encouraged to complete registration to administer EXPLORE in grade 9 and PLAN in grade 10. The information provided below will outline this opportunity for high schools. The state is able to pay only for the administration of EXPLORE at grade 9 and PLAN at grade 10.

Schools and districts will receive copies of student-level reports, school-level reports, and district-level reports. These reports will include academic achievement data in English, Mathematics, Reading and Science, as well as data on students’ career aspirations. These data will be valuable in planning programs for individual and groups of students. School- and district-level data will include student performance broken down by subgroups as well as comparisons of students’ curricula and performance on the EXPLORE or PLAN test.

These assessments:

• provide data to help pinpoint student strengths and weaknesses, aligned to college and career ready expectations,
• provide data regarding student preferences for post-high school activities,
• provide the school with information on program effectiveness,
• provide valid and reliable data on student achievement at grades not currently assessed by PSAE.​​

• ​​Participating Districts must administer both EXPLORE at grade 9 and PLAN at grade 10.
• ​​All answer documents returned to be scored must contain a student’s nine-digit state-assigned ID. To facilitate this, districts may order Pre-ID labels directly from ACT (preferred method) or may hand-grid all answer documents.

August 12, 2013 ACT will begin to accept orders from Districts for materials and Pre-ID labels.​

Additional Key Dates:

• November 15, 2013: Last day to ship materials to ACT for processing
• 10 business days after receipt of answer documents at ACT: School score reports shipped to testing sites
• 14 business days after receipt of answer documents from all schools at ACT: District score reports shipped to testing sites
• February 1, 2014 (anticipated): District and School EXPLORE/PLAN results available in ISBE’s Student Information System

To participate in the Illinois EXPLORE and PLAN state funded contract, all orders must be placed by the district under the State Contract Cycle. Following the Ordering Guide will insure that orders are placed correctly. Orders placed through the National Ordering Cycle will be billed to the school district and will not be part of the state project. If a school district has ordered EXPLORE for grade 9 or PLAN for grade 10 through the National Ordering Cycle, but has not yet tested, please contact ACT Customer Services at 877-789-2925 to learn how to insure correct scoring and billing under the contract.​

To participate in the Illinois EXPLORE and PLAN state funded contract all answer documents returned to be scored must contain a student’s nine-digit state-assigned ID. To facilitate this, districts may order Pre-ID labels directly from ACT (preferred) or may hand grid all answer documents.

Pre-ID Directions (ACT Website)​

• 2013-14 EXPLORE Supervisor's Manual
• 2013-14 PLAN Supervisor's Manual
• 2013-14 Guidance – Assessment Accommodations for Students with Limited English Proficiency​​