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The ACT (American College Testing company) has just published its annual look at college readiness. This study comes in light of its setting several benchmarks of college readiness back in 2010. Essentially, the organization has determined that in order to be ready for college high school students need to achieve certain minimum ACT test scores in English Composition, social sciences courses, College Algebra, or Biology.
So which states are doing a good job preparing students for college, according to the ACT model? Well, none of them.
Despite the fact that the new study (pdf) indicated that “more students were college ready,” the report revealed that zero states had 55 percent or more students meeting three of the four ACT benchmarks. Just one in four high school students, or 25 percent of them, met all four college readiness benchmarks.
According to the report:
States must define “how good is good enough” for college and career readiness. In addition to a consistent, rigorous set of essential K-12 content standards, states must define performance standards so that students, parents, and teachers know how well students must perform academically to have a reasonable chance of success at college or on the job. Based on decades of student performance data, ACT defines “college readiness” as students having a 50% chance of earning a grade of B or higher or about a 75% chance of earning a grade of C or higher in first-year college English Composition; College Algebra; Biology; or History, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, or Economics.
And we wonder why most college students don’t graduate from college in four years.
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Meno on August 17, 2011 9:01 PM:
A pretty decent parsing of their own data by the ACT. One thing to mention is that the overall readiness has slightly increased over the last few years. It begs to ask how significant the 1-2% change actually is? It would definitely be nice to see a more robust upward trend.
Also of note are the ACT's suggestions for improving these numbers. Two kinds of standards are mentioned, raising expectations is mentioned twice and finally a longitudinal data tracking system. Nowhere is there a mention of the possibility of improving instructional methods or supporting teachers who do set kids up for success.