Approximately 1.85 million students—or 57 percent of the U.S. high school class of 2014— took the ACT in 2014. That’s an 18 percent uptick since 2010, despite the overall number of graduates decreasing by 3 percent. Twelve states boast a 100 percent participation rate; yet all of them, predictably, have composite scores below the national average of 21. The highest marks belong to states in which just 20–30 percent of graduates took the ACT: Massachusetts (composite score of 24.3), New Hampshire, and Connecticut (each with scores of 24.2). Diversity is also up. The proportion of test takers who are Hispanic has increased since 2010, while the percentage of white students sitting for the ACT has dropped. College readiness, as measured by the ACT, remains stagnant, and achievement gaps persist. Students who meet at least three out of four of the ACT’s subject-specific college-readiness benchmarks are deemed to have a good shot at success freshman year. In 2013, 53 percent of white students met the math benchmark, compared to a mere 14 percent of African American students and 29 percent Hispanic students. This year, numbers are down one percentage point for both white and Hispanic pupils, while African American kids still register a paltry 14 percent. The numbers are nearly identical for reading, with no more than a one-point change in any of the three groups. Worse yet, the report notes that a significant number of test-takers who say they plan to go to college fail to actually do so. In 2013, for example, only four-fifths of these students followed through on their pledge. In short, aside from higher numbers of students sitting for the ACT, there’s little to be happy about here.
SOURCE: The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2014 National (ACT, August 2014).
