At its June 28 meeting, the Arizona State Board of Education did not approve the SAT for the Menu of Assessments for the 2021-2022 school year. The decision requires all schools to only administer the ACT Aspire and ACT in high school as the statewide assessment.

In June 2020, the Board awarded ACT, in partnership with NCS Pearson, the contract for the statewide assessment beginning in the 2021-2022 school year. As part of the 5-Year Assessment Plan, the Board intended for the nationally recognized college exam that failed to win the bid for the statewide assessment, in this case SAT, to be on the Menu of Assessments.

This would have allowed schools to administer either the ACT or the SAT to high school students.

However, in January 2021 the College Board decided to remove the essay portion from the SAT. In order to be federally compliant, the state needs to assess writing. The Board determined that it was better to not approve the SAT for the Menu rather than risk federal funds again.

The State Board indicated it would consider approving the SAT for the Menu should the College Board offer an essay portion in the future.

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Education placed Arizona on “high-risk status” due to its assessment system and threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funds.