Test Scores Suggest High School Grads Are Not College-Ready
Not good news.
PBS NewsHour reports.
Many of this year’s high school grads may not be college-ready, test scores suggest
WASHINGTON — The latest scores from the ACT college entrance exam suggest many of this year’s high school graduates aren’t ready for college-level course work.
In its annual score report released Wednesday, the testing company said only 38 percent of graduating seniors who took the exam hit the college-prepared benchmark in at least three of the four core subjects tested — reading, English, math and science. That compares with 40 percent last year. The benchmark is designed to measure a strong readiness for college.
The average composite score also declined a bit, down from 21 to 20.8 this year. The four tests are scored on a scale of 1 to 36. The composite is the average of the four scores. Many colleges use the composite in admissions.
Many of this year’s high school grads may not be college-ready, test scores suggest (PBS)
Comments
Sad, but unsurprising.
That article says nothing at all.
Yes, not everyone who graduates from high school is college material, or should be. This has always been so. This does not imply any unusual problem.
The article cites a trivial decline in an average composite score. But the percentage of students taking the tests is up. Assuming that all the students we’d expect to qualify for college already take the tests, the additional ones must be from the population not terribly qualified for college, so of course the average score will drop. This doesn’t imply any change at all in the academic level of any of the students, the teaching quality of the schools, or anything but a successful sales job by the outfits administering the tests.
In other words … nothing much. Just another slow news day.