The average national ACT test score for high-school graduates increased slightly for the third time in the past five years, but new test data suggests that core classes — particularly in math and science — are not preparing students enough for college work.
We still have a long way to go in ensuring that all high-school graduates are prepared for the next level, but the progress we’re seeing is very encouraging, said Richard L. Ferguson, ACT’s chief executive officer, in response to the release yesterday of the 2007 test results.
Students who graduated high school in 2007 and took the ACT exam — a record 1.3 million people — earned an average score of 21.2, up from 21.1 last year and 20.8 in 2003. The ACT college admission and placement exam is set on a scale of 1 to 36 and covers various subjects, testing college preparedness.
The test is administered nationwide, but a majority of high school graduates take the ACT in 26 states.
This year’s test results also showed a continuing increase in the number of students who score at or above the benchmark level in each subject area. The ACT assigns each subject a benchmark score, which is the minimum score needed to indicate the student has a 50 percent change of obtaining a B or higher and a 75 percent chance of obtaining a C or higher in a first-year college course.
The percentage of students who meet those benchmarks has been inching higher each year. Sixty-nine percent reached the benchmark for English, 43 percent met the benchmark for math, 53 percent for reading and 28 percent for science.
The bad news, however, is that fewer than half of the test-takers are prepared for college-level work in math and science. And it gets more troubling as the numbers are dissected. Students who took the basic high school curriculum in these areas did worse.
For example, among those who took Algebra I and II as well as geometry — the minimum core course work in math — only 15 percent met or surpassed ACT’s benchmark.
And only 20 percent who took the high-school minimum core course work in science — general science, biology and chemistry — met or exceeded ACT’s benchmark.
Mr. Ferguson said these findings present a real problem.
Taking the basic core curriculum should enable most students to be ready for their first year of college,” he said.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said yesterday that test-takers falling short of these benchmarks is unacceptable.
She used the opportunity to push for the high school reforms that President Bush wants to include in legislation that will renew the 2002 No Child Left Behind law. Congress is set to start tackling that legislation in September.
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