College & Workforce Readiness

ACT Scores Virtually Unchanged, But Participation Is Up

By Caralee J. Adams — August 26, 2014 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Student performance on the ACT remains virtually unchanged this year compared with last, new data show, although more students than ever are taking the college-entrance exam—a record 57 percent of the 2014 high school graduating class,up from 54 percent in 2013.

The average composite ACT score for the class of 2014 was 21 (on a scale of 1 to 36), a slight bump from 20.9 for 2013 graduates, according to the Iowa City, Iowa-based ACT Inc.'s annual “Condition of College and Career Readiness” report, issued last week.

For 2012 graduates, the average score was 21.1. Scores have hovered right around 21 over the past decade; in 2004 the figure was 20.9.

In addition, little movement was seen this year on ACT’s college-readiness benchmarks, which seek to predict students’ probability of success in credit-bearing college courses. About 26 percent of ACT-tested graduates in 2014 met the benchmarks in all subject areas (English, mathematics, reading, and science), while 31 percent met none—the same as last year.

Large gaps in readiness levels among racial and ethnic groups also persist, the data show.

“High school performance has been flat for more than a decade,” said Robert Rothman, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. “We’ve seen it on NAEP, we’ve seen it on [the global] PISA [exam], and now we see it again on the ACT.”

He added: “The good news is that graduation rates have gone up. Students are staying in school, but they are not achieving any more. Young people are not going to succeed in college or the workplace at the current levels of performance.”

This is the 10th consecutive year that ACT participation has expanded, with nearly 1.85 million students taking the exam. That represents a 17.7 percent increase since 2010, even as the estimated number of high school graduates has decreased slightly over that time period.

This is also the third consecutive year that test participation on the ACT has surpassed that of the SAT. The New York City-based College Board recently announced a redesign of the SAT to be completed in 2016. The College Board reported 1.66 million test-takers for the SAT in 2013, a slight decline from 2012. The SAT report for this year’s graduating class will be out in early fall.

Aside from the composite-score changes, ACT reported mixed results with performance on its college-readiness benchmarks.

Achievement Gaps

For the class of 2014, readiness in science rose 1 percent and dropped 1 percent in math, while readiness scores for English and reading were the same as last year. (The English section of the ACT focuses on skills such as punctuation, grammar, and rhetoric; the reading portion measures comprehension.)

While 49 percent of whites and 57 percent of Asian-Americans met three of the four ACT benchmarks (the same as in 2013), just 11 percent of African-American students did so, up from 10 percent last year. Among Hispanic students, 23 percent achieved readiness scores in at least three subjects in 2014, down from 24 percent the previous year.

A growing number of states have contracts with ACT to administer the test to all high school juniors, a trend that has helped it become the most widely used college-entrance exam in recent years.

In 11 states, the ACT was offered during the school day to all juniors in public high schools in the class of 2014. Three other states began testing statewide in spring 2013. Five more states will test all juniors in the coming school year. In some states, the ACT has replaced high school exit exams as a threshold for graduation.

Also, in some states with multiple years of ACT testing of nearly all eligible students, achievement is rising slightly. Three states in which all juniors took the test experienced an increase of 0.2 points in their average ACT scores (Colorado, Michigan, and North Carolina) and another three (Kentucky, Tennessee, and Wyoming) saw average scores improve by 0.3 points, according to ACT. Scores rose 0.1 points between the graduating classes of 2013 and 2014 in Illinois and North Dakota, where all students also are offered the exam.

Deb Lindsey, the assessment director for the Wyoming education department, said the state’s improvement is not trivial.

“It represents an additional emphasis that schools place on assessment and a shift in responsibility to the school, not just the student,” she said.

Postsecondary Outcomes

Jim Hull, the senior policy analyst at the National School Boards Association, in Alexandria, Va., said a 0.2 change is “fairly significant” in one year, and a 0.3 improvement is “pretty impressive.”

Still, what that means for postsecondary outcomes is not as clear. Mr. Hull’s research shows that a 0.3 point increase in ACT scores improves the chances of the average high school graduate getting admitted into a competitive college by about 1 percentage point.

Katy Murphy, a high school counselor in San Jose, Calif., and the president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said she has mixed feelings about the implications of ACT’s statewide contracts that provide testing for all students during the school day.

For students who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the exam, statewide testing can be good, she said. But Ms. Murphy is concerned there is not enough being done to explain to students what the scores mean. She also worries about the time testing takes away from instruction.

Meanwhile, the new ACT report reveals something of a disconnect between students’ college aspirations and reality. For the class of 2013, 87 percent of test-takers said they intended to go to college, yet only 69 percent enrolled in the fall after graduation. Of test-takers in the class of 2014, 86 percent said they aspire to college, but Jon Erickson, ACT’s president of education and career services, anticipates about the same drop-off in eventual college enrollment.

A version of this article appeared in the August 27, 2014 edition of Education Week as ACT Scores Virtually Unchanged; Participation Up

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math
Student Well-Being Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Drive K-12 Academic Performance and Wellbeing
Wish you could handle emotions better? Learn practical strategies with researcher Marc Brackett and host Peter DeWitt.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

College & Workforce Readiness AP Students Rate Their Favorite—and Least Favorite—Courses of 2025
Students taking AP exams for college credit can review their scores in July.
3 min read
Illustration of diverse students sitting on a stack of huge textbooks with one holding a pencil and smiling. There is a blue background with ghosted math equations swirling around.
iStock/Getty
College & Workforce Readiness Summer Jobs for Teens Are Now Scarce. Some Schools Are Trying to Change That
From on-campus job fairs to partnerships with local programs, these high schools are finding teens summer work.
5 min read
Hannah Waring, left, a student at Loudoun Valley High School, and Abby McDonough, a student at Liberty University, work in the strawberry stand at Wegmeyer Farms in Hamilton, Va., on May 23, 2017. Waring and McDonough worked at Wegmeyer Farms for the summer. Summer jobs are vanishing as U.S. teens spend more time in school and doing extra curricular activities, and face competition from older workers.
Hannah Waring, left, a student at Loudoun Valley High School, and Abby McDonough, a student at Liberty University, work in the strawberry stand at Wegmeyer Farms in Hamilton, Va., on May 23, 2017. The teen summer employment rate is down this year, but some schools are trying to create opportunities for their students.
Carolyn Kaster/AP
College & Workforce Readiness College for Students With Intellectual Disabilities Faces an Uncertain Future
Inclusive higher education programs benefit students with intellectual disabilities. But funding challenges are threatening their growth.
8 min read
Students in the TerpsEXCEED program celebrate in their caps and gowns with a photo on McKeldin Mall at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.
Students in the TerpsEXCEED program celebrate in their caps and gowns with a photo on McKeldin Mall at the University of Maryland in College Park. Inclusive postsecondary programs offer education and opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities, but uncertainties around federal funding threaten their growth.
Photo Credit: Feldy Suwito, Image of Life Photography
College & Workforce Readiness Q&A 'Adulting 101': The High School Class Teaching Real-Life Skills
Beyond core academics, what skills should high school students master before they graduate?
6 min read
Unrecognizable woman using mobile phone while calculating the amount of her bills at home. Focus is on hand and cell phone.
E+/Getty