By Steve Tapp, ACT CEO
Across the country, I keep hearing the same question from educators, employers, higher ed leaders, and policymakers: how do we make sure what we're doing in schools is actually preparing students for what comes next? A diploma is necessary, but it is no longer sufficient; students need validated skills and clear pathways that connect their effort in school to real opportunity after graduation. That is the challenge driving education and workforce leaders right now. And it is the challenge that brought us to a firm conviction at ACT: we cannot solve it from a distance.
This is why ACT is committed to bringing leaders and practitioners together in person to share what’s working, surface common challenges, and build the cross-sector connections that no assessment or data platform can replicate on its own.
Through ACT Regional Summits and the ACT National Summit, professionals from K–12, higher education, workforce systems, and state policy come together not for presentations and platitudes, but for real conversations that address real challenges and drive actionable solutions.
Making the rounds
When we bring people from across different sectors together in the same room, focused on shared goals and shared challenges, conversations begin that simply cannot occur any other way. A superintendent and a workforce director do not usually sit at the same table. When they do, progress happens.
Convening as a catalyst
For more than 65 years, ACT has helped learners navigate their education and career journeys. But our responsibility extends beyond delivering high-quality assessments. We are in the business of measuring and predicting outcomes, and measurement connects learning to opportunity. Fulfilling that mission requires great products and great partnership.
ACT’s Regional Summits and our national ACT Summit were designed with this in mind. These gatherings create space for K-12 leaders, state policymakers, higher education administrators, and workforce professionals to share what’s working, address challenges, and learn from one another. Our role is to listen and facilitate — to connect dots across sectors that too often operate in silos.
When a superintendent from a rural district hears directly from a workforce development leader about the skills employers are struggling to find, that conversation matters. When a higher education admissions leader and a state education administrator explore the association between college readiness benchmarks and first-year success metrics, that alignment matters. These moments accelerate progress in ways that no report or webinar can replicate.
The main event
With the 2026 ACT Summit: Where Policy and Purpose Meet Practice approaching in July, I am looking forward to experiencing this dynamic at scale. I know last year’s event sold out and generated exceptional feedback. This year’s Summit aims to deliver even more opportunities for collaboration, connection, and outcomes that participants can carry back to their districts, campuses, and communities.
What I am most looking forward to is candid engagement between individuals across sectors. Leaders do not attend because they want a sales pitch. They attend because they want a partner — one who understands the complexity of their environment and is willing to tackle hard questions alongside them. I will be listening for those questions as much as I will be contributing to the conversations.
These conversations are specific and grounded:
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For K–12 leaders, it often means grappling with how to measure college and career readiness in ways that are both rigorous and equitable.
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For higher education institutions, it centers on persistence, placement, and ensuring students enter credit-bearing coursework prepared to succeed.
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For workforce partners, the conversation increasingly focuses on how we validate skills, signal competencies, and connect learning to labor market demand.
No single organization can solve the readiness gap alone. Our role is to hold the door open for the cross-sector collaboration – bringing superintendents and CEOs to the same table to have productive conversations with key stakeholders in the room. When we help align expectations, provide actionable insights from data, and create an in-person forum, shared ownership of opportunities can take root.
From conversation to action
ACT’s Catherine Hofmann recently said, “When we listen deeply — to students, educators, institutions, and workforce leaders — we build tools that are more usable, insights that are more actionable, and partnerships that are more durable.” In-person engagement at our various summits throughout the year provides a crucial setting in which we can listen to those we serve face-to-face, prompting changes when necessary and making us more effective allies.
Whether we hear conversations that center on policy shifts, funding constraints, accessibility challenges, enrollment pressures, or evolving skill demands, these discussions ensure the tools we build solve the challenges that educators, higher education leaders, and workforce professionals face every day. This is how ACT’s innovations stay grounded in real-world applications, and how ideas become actions.
As we continue to prioritize growth in the workforce space and deepen our support across the education landscape, these convenings will become even more critical. The challenges facing educators and employers are interconnected and require cross-sector solutions. ACT is uniquely positioned to help facilitate those solutions, but only if we remain close to the field.
Our commitment going forward
Back to that question I hear most often — How do we make sure education actually leads somewhere? It doesn’t have a single answer. But I believe it has a clear direction: we get the right people in the same room, we listen to what they are experiencing, and we build the tools and connections that help them move forward together.
Sustaining that momentum requires ongoing, meaningful dialogue.
The K-career landscape continues to shift as AI transforms jobs, technology reshapes access, and students seek clearer postsecondary pathways. The most powerful responses to those shifts will not come from any one organization working in isolation. They will come from the conversations that happen when educators, employers, policymakers, and practitioners share the same table.
ACT will remain dedicated to investing in Regional Summits, stakeholder meetings, and the flagship ACT Summit, as strategic and purposeful initiatives.
In-person collaboration builds trust. Trust builds partnership. Partnership drives outcomes. And prioritizing outcomes for students is at the heart of what we are all here to do.
