FairTest notes that the number of ACT test-takers d3clined.
FairTest
National Center for Fair & Open Testing
for further information:
Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773
cell (239) 699-0468
for use with annual ACT scores, Wednesday, October 17, 2018
NUMBER OF STUDENTS TAKING ACT DECLINES SHARPLY AS
MANY MORE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES DROP ADMISSIONS EXAMS;
1020+ SCHOOLS ARE NOW ACT/SAT-OPTIONAL;
K-12 “TEST-AND-PUNISH” POLICIES DID NOT HELP “COLLEGE READINESS”
The number of students taking the ACT college admissions exam plunged for the second year in a row, for the high school class of 2018. The decline — more than 175,000 or 8% over the two-year period — counters a long-term trend in which the ACT overtook the SAT in popularity, according to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) (http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/ACT-SAT-Annual-Test-Takers-Chart.pdf). FairTest Public Education Director Bob Schaeffer explained, “A portion of the drop-off likely stems from the rapid growth in students applying to test-optional colleges that do not require either the ACT or SAT.”
A FairTest analysis also reveals that average ACT scores within racial groups either dropped or stagnated over the past five years. Schaeffer concluded, “This provides additional evidence that K-12 test-and-punish policies pursued by the federal government and many states have not improved readiness for higher education, at least as measured by this exam.” Flat or declining scores have also been reported on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the SAT.
At the same time, a rapidly growing number of colleges and universities adopted policies to waive consideration of ACT/SAT scores for all or many applicants. A FairTest tally shows that more than 1020 bachelor-degree granting institutions are now test-optional (http://fairtest.org/university/optional). In the past five years, more than 130 schools eliminated or reduced their ACT and SAT exam requirements (http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Growth-Chronology.pdf), a pace of one every two weeks. FairTest’s test-optional list now includes more than 320 colleges and universities ranked in the top tiers of their respective categories by U.S. News & World Report. (http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf).
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ACT ANNUAL HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS TESTING VOLUME
Class of 2015 1,924,436
Class of 2016 2,090,342
Class of 2017 2,030,038
Class of 2018 1,914,817
Source ACT, The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2015 – 2018
2018 COLLEGE-BOUND SENIORS AVERAGE ACT SCORE
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The long-term trend still looks like: # of test-takers increasing, scores flat.
Could it be that the students who test well are the ones who are no longer taking the ACT because they are the ones applying to the U of Chicago caliber schools so the drop,if it is statistically significant, could be due to a change in the pool of test takers? Just wondering…
I hate our misguided “let’s trash the public schools so millionaires can get rich with privatization” policies but I do not want to misuse or misrepresent data. Let’s follow the wise tenets of G. Bracey.
I often recommend that my students listen to this short podcast about statistics they see in the news: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvq3v
Conclusions about the state of American education based on reports of decline, rise, or stagnation of scores on tests such as ACT or SAT are frequently premature and usually sidestep essential questions:
1) Do ACT and SAT– designed primarily to sort prospective college students– measure the qualities most predictive of college success? There is research to suggest that high school grades, while imperfect, are a better predictor. So rise and fall of scores on these tests may or may not be a cause for concern.
2) Do they measure the knowledge, skill, and abilities (KSAs) necessary for success in what follows high school– life, work, and citizenship? Certainly critical thinking, creativity, ability to work in a diverse environment, perseverance, and empathy are among the essential KSAs that these tests do not measure. So, at best they are a partial education quality indicator. I am not suggesting that we need tests to directly measure these other qualities, but since they indeed matter, we should be looking beyond, what ACT and SAT do measure.
3) Since the level of educational attainment and socioeconomic status of students’ parents are most predictive of students’ scores on ACT and SAT, maybe changes in those variables (increased inequality, family stress, etc.) should be factored into any score trend analysis.
4) Scores on standardized tests in continuous use are supposed to be comparable across years. This depends on the psychometric quality of the equating process and on the comparability of what is tested across years. This is a tricky process and includes substantial potential for misinterpretation.
5) Drawing conclusions based on these test scores about the quality of the content or extent of implementation of state standards or the Common Core State Standards especially problematic. First, the scores reveal nothing about the fidelity with which teacher and schools implemented the standards. Second, the scores reveal nothing about the support that teachers may or may not gotten to make the changes in content or instructional practice intended by standards writers. Third, there is widespread disagreement about what the standards do or do not imply about curriculum and instruction.
6) Of course, be especially aware of cherry picking of results to support foregone conclusions. The entire NCLB/Common Core consequential test regime with the impossible goal of 100% proficiency was designed to provide “data” to support the claim of failure of American education in order to pave the way for the privatization its promoters knew most Americans did not support. Now that score trends point in a different direction, test and punish and CCSS pushers make the fantastical claim that we need more of the thing Americans never wanted, privatization! No excuses was always meant for the public schools they wanted to fail, not the charter and private schools they want whether or not they are successful for students.
So, when scores rise or fall don’t rush to celebrate or lament. Claims to the contrary the sky may or may not be falling.
“Do ACT and SAT– designed primarily to sort prospective college students– measure the qualities most predictive of college success? . . . I am not suggesting that we need tests to directly measure these other qualities, but since they indeed matter, we should be looking beyond, what ACT and SAT do measure.”
Well, Arthur, I sure this response will not surprise you, eh!
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume, we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition] (notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words, a “truly scientific endeavor”)
Now since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
The basic fallacy of this is the confusing and conflating metrological (metrology is the scientific study of measurement) measuring and measuring that connotes assessing, evaluating and judging. The two meanings are not the same and confusing and conflating them is a very easy way to make it appear that standards and standardized testing are “scientific endeavors”-objective and not subjective like assessing, evaluating and judging.
That those false supposed objective results are used to justify discrimination against many students for their life circumstances and inherent intellectual traits is an abomination of malpractice that should be immediately stopped to prevent further harm to the most vulnerable and innocent of society, the students.
How about a countdown until we hit zero students take the SAT and ACT?