The 2019 ACT scores, which are supposed to measure “college readiness,” dropped to a record low.
This follows nine years after the release of the Common Core State Standards, which were supposed to promote “college and career readiness.”
Nick Anderson of the Washington Post writes:
ACT defines its readiness benchmark as a score indicating a student has at least a 50 percent chance of getting a B or higher in a corresponding first-year college course. For English, the ACT benchmark is 18 out of a maximum 36. For math, it is 22.
When students took a strong course load through high school, ACT found, they fared better.
“Our findings once again indicate that taking core courses in high school dramatically increases a student’s likelihood for success after graduation,” ACT chief executive Marten Roorda said in a statement. “That’s why we need to ensure that all students of all backgrounds have access to rigorous courses and that we are supporting them not only academically, but socially and emotionally as well.”
The ACT — one of two major admission tests — assesses students in English, reading, math and science with multiple-choice questions that take nearly three hours to complete, not counting an optional essay-writing exam. More than a dozen states pay for all high school students to take the ACT during school hours, and others fund the testing on an optional basis….
Among 15 states where officials said nearly all graduates took the test, only four posted an average composite score of 20 or higher: Nebraska, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin.
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Education activist Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, commented:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t give a rats backside about ACT scores. Neither should Universities if their leaders had half a brain.
Maybe, but they are an indicator that not much is taking place in high school. Yes, we have one of the highest graduation rates of all time, but that doesn’t mean we are learning more. In fact, we are probably learning less. Our main focus is on standardized testing which has proven nothing.
The Koch Bros/Republican plan at work.
Dumb down the electorate and you can get away with anything.
Common Core is a bust.
Exactly. It’s a failure by the Deformers’ own measures–test scores.
Maybe in another decade states will replace it with something equally terrible.
I have written and ranted for many years that the practices designed to improve scores on standardized measures, including the ACT, would inevitably lead to decline in the scores they purported to raise. Some time ago observers seemed confused that while 4th grade scores were rising, 8th grade scores were falling. It is because the daily drills that improve 4th grade scores are stultifying and gradually erode the capacities that are needed for more complex cognition.
It’s not complicated. The educational practices of this era violate most of the psychological and neurobiological principles that characterize cognitive development.
Yes, students need their long term memory to be filled with knowledge in order to read with comprehension and do other complex cognition. This is the finding of recent research that’s led to the development of cognitive load theory. The common core curriculum is not designed to add knowledge to long term memory. It attempts to exercise non-existent mental muscles. It’s based on bad science.
The argument about whether the brain is a muscle was vigorously contested a century ago. Read “Left Back.”
Yes, Diane, I recall that from the book –I’ve been meaning to reread that part. Yet the debunked idea is alive and well today. As far as I can tell, that’s the tacit underlying premise of most curriculum today: do onerous close reading over and over and your brain will get stronger. It’s not working and it cannot work, yet teachers believe it –again, tacitly. It’s not expressed, but it’s there and it’s real.
Cognitive load theory debunks this idea. It says the brain’s working memory is very limited. It cannot do complex tasks unless long-term memory makes speed-of-light deliveries of relevant knowledge and schema. Thus the only way to make the brain smarter is to stock long-term memory. These mental gymnastics alone are fruitless (they are useful as ways of embedding newly-learned knowledge, but only in so far as they add to long-term memory. There are no “muscles” being strengthened).
Ignorance of your book, and of recent science, is holding us back.
The brain as a muscle is central to Carol Dweck’s Brainology grit nonsense.
Seriously, I’ve been assigned textbooks with a picture of a cartoon brain lifting a barbell on the cover, and enclosed Dweck reading for students about how raising your test scores is all about sustained effort and nothing else.
“Carol Dweck’s Brainology grit nonsense” — funny, I thought that Dweck’s growth mindset idea — which was not substantiated by her research, which was deeply flawed — was popular on this website.
add in to this Blame The Kids/Blame The Schools/Blame The Teachers game the fact that once test making companies started figuring out that with all the idiotic NCLB/RTTT insanity they could start demanding that ALL eligible kids take the ACT…well, anyone with a brain could surely figure out that when kids used to only take the test by paying for it and attending test times on the weekend, these scores were then going to be made very different in years when kids of all backgrounds and interests were forced to take the test for ‘free’ (districts paying huge prices for it in poorest schools) during a regular school week…
Amen, Steve! And one of these “psychological and neurobiological principles” is that extrinsic reward and punishment systems like high-stakes testing and data walls and data chats and test prep pretests and benchmark tests and VAM and merit pay and school grading are DEMOTIVATING for cognitive tasks.
Indeed, Bob! That’s among the most absurd things about school policies in general.
“Some time ago observers seemed confused that while 4th grade scores were rising, 8th grade scores were falling. It is because the daily drills that improve 4th grade scores are stultifying and gradually erode the capacities that are needed for more complex cognition.” — Or it is because elementary math is taught better than middle school math.
Er, no. The development of the neural pathways that facilitate understanding of more complex mathematical concepts is inhibited by the “teach to the test” practices that temporarily boost test performance.
It is analogous to this (admittedly oversimplified) aspect of language learning: If you spend hours a day drilling students in spelling based on a 100 word list, they will, over time, spell more of the words correctly. Deformers declare victory! However, those students are not learning words in context, understanding meaning, or developing a deeper understanding of language. The spelling drills are boring – a sin of commission – and they are also wasting time that could be spent leading children to love language and stories – a sin of omission. And they will ultimate do poorly on tests that demand more cognitive fluidity.
Math is beautiful. Language is beautiful. It is a shame that kids are losing curiosity and intrinsic motivation because of lousy educational practices.
The curriculum we receive is so wordy and overwrought and so far from the basics … it is hard to explain it plainly to our students. We are pulled away from basics by technology, testing and strange dictates that must be followed with fidelity because it is in the adopted program. Instead of looking at your students and starting where they are at- you are beholden to those above you who want scores and data. Then as a teacher, you are jerked around with the next new program with new dictates.
Kids need material to be simplified in order to be learned. Today’s curriculum complicates —intentionally. They think it makes kids smarter by exercising mental muscles. But the brain is not like a muscle.
I had the same opinion when I looked a the 4th grade math program that my grandson is taking. They go through so many steps to get an answer. I know it is supposed to give students a ‘better number sense,” but it’s not working. My grandson had no idea why he has to go through all these steps.
Over the years I’ve come to suspend judgment about, if not entirely defer to, the ways math is taught in elementary school today. When my kids were going through it, it drove me crazy. “Just learn the damn times-tables!” But my high-school daughter today is better at math than I was at her age, and she’s a much deeper “math thinker” than I was (or am today). My point being, in the long run, for your grandson, this may all come out in the wash, or turn out even better. Of course, I must add the self-evident caveat that I don’t really know what I’m talking about on this.
Ditto to what FLERP! replied here.
I replied in the John Merrow post earlier that I also found this to be the case for the hated elementary school math used now. I could (and still can) tell you what the answer to “what’s 9 x 7” faster than my kid, but never had the overall understanding of numbers.
In terms of the ACT scores dropping — I bet most parents who aren’t in math/engineering related fields would struggle to pass the basic Algebra 1 Regents that today’s students are expected to pass in 8th or 9th grade. I wonder what a typical ACT math section looks like and whether most humanities high school teachers would do well.
“They go through so many steps to get an answer.’ — going over many steps is OK. The problem is that instead doing it once they do it again and again and again… Same for middle school math. Same for high school math. They invent horrendous abominations like “two sided linear equations” and go through them again and again, instead of teaching polynomials and collecting like terms first. Utterly pitiful. At least I have my own textbook that is more sane.
To answer the question directly above, the ACT math section is composed of rather straight forward, but fairly difficult pre-calculus and algebra 2 questions.
It is actually a good exam, if you are interested in determining whether or not a student can do mathematics at the pre-calculus level.
The science portion can be aced by students that take AP Biology, AP Environmental Science and AP Chemistry. Students that have taken those courses can skip all of the reading that precedes several graphs and go straight to the questions…which are more about analyzing data than real science concepts. The point being that someone that has taken that combination of AP classes has seen all of the material (literally) before.
The English portion focuses on grammar and reading comprehension.
Steve M,
I tried to post the link to the sample ACT that the ACT itself publishes (not a test from a test prep website). It is available on the ACT website.
I encourage people to view it for themselves. it is quite, quite difficult. I received a high ACT Math score when I took it many decades ago and I had never had math beyond Algebra 2 (which did not include any trig in those days). Students got into the top colleges without ever having taken any Calculus or pre-Calculus. If the exam is significantly more difficult while the students taking it are significantly more poor with significantly more disabilities, then it would be odd if the scores did not go down. What is shocking to me is how many students come out of high school knowing such high level math these days!
Exactly. It’s straightforward enough to see the evils of the explicit test prep, but the worst part of Deform has been that the test prep has metastasized throughout curricula and pedagogy by means of directives from state, district, and school-level administrators to use such materials and approaches in order to meet the one objective that matters to them–improving those test scores. And ofc this is self-defeating.
So when will ACT change their test so that they can gain control of the testing realm again? SAT is directly aligned to Common Bore….so SAT scores will rise and ACT scores will fall. When will parents figure out the game? My daughter took ACT this summer after taking the SAT twice (with no real improvements……and we paid for NO test prepping classes!). She liked the ACT better than the SAT but she couldn’t complete the test. She reads very slow because CC is ALL about close reading of short informational text to pick out the main points. She liked the ACT’s very long and interesting reading material, but she didn’t have time to complete the question/answer part of the last reading due to her slower reading ability. She didn’t “score” bad, but her SAT gave her a better “score”. And just an FYI…..I don’t believe in either test and all of her desired colleges are no test or test optional, but she is a teenager who doesn’t quite believe that her mother could be correct about modern school things (because I went to school in the dark ages!)
Student high school grades are a better predictor of college success than the SAT or ACT. How hard a student works is important in college, and these tests cannot measure the amount of effort a student makes.
As I’ve been telling her for a few years now! I’ve stayed away from pointing out that these tests are rooted in the Eugenics Movement because I don’t want her thinking that all her teachers and guidance counselors are “racists” because they push the kids to take these tests. She knows that I don’t support the testing and she now knows that the courses to help with raising test scores is a sham. She has to figure this out on her own terms….because I’m too stupid right now!
For economics classes the SAT Math score is the best single predictor of grades. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the same to be true in other disciplines if we hold course choices constant. If students with math SAT scores of below 400 enrolled in science and engineering calculus courses along with students who scored over 700 on the math SAT, I think you would find SAT scores do predict grades in the class.
Their grades would tell you all you need to know.
High school grades are not as good a predictor as SAT math scores in economics classes in my department.
Grade inflation will likely make this inevitable across departments. When all students come to the university with a 4.0, high school grades will not have any predictive power for college performance.
Teaching Economist, you are one of the few voices of sanity here.
ACT is aligned to Common Core
It MAY be “semi aligned”, but it is not directly aligned like the SAT. Why would David Coleman who designed the CC ELA standards want to share the testing wealth with ACT? David Coleman designed the new SAT to directly align with CC and AP. The College Board is a “product” line and the SAT (and AP tests) is/are there to prove its “superiority”. Two different and competing companies offering two different tests that are both bogus.
David Coleman’s drafting committee to write CCSS included employees of both SAT and ACT to assure that both testing giants were fully on board. At the time, Coleman did not know he would be hired to lead the College Board and run the SAT
I call the new SAT the SCCAT–the Scholastic Common Core Assessment Test.
In my opinion, it is not helpful to talk about “average” scores or percentages of test takers who can achieve a certain score. If a state is requiring all students to take a standardized exam in school, the percentage of students who achieve a certain score will automatically be lower. If another state just has the students most motivated to go to college taking that test, the percentage who achieve that score will be higher.
And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that a standardized test can be normed differently. Back in the 1970s, getting an SAT score of 1350 was Ivy League ready. Now many students have 200 points higher.
Average composite scores for the ACT are going to change, too, as I understand that students will now be able to retake only the sections they scored lowest on and use them as part of the composite.
Here is my question: what is the hard number of students who score above a 33 on the ACT compared with 5 or 10 years ago? What is the hard number of students who score above a 30 compared with 5 or 10 years ago? What is hard number of students who score above a 25 and a 20 compared with 5 or 10 years ago? Are those numbers sky high compared to the past? The fact that there are also more kids scoring below a 20 to bring an “average” down is then likely a reflection of nothing more than having students who in the past would not take those tests taking them. It says very little about education being better or worse from what it was in the past. If one even believes a standardized test tells much about education, anyway.
“If a state is requiring all students to take a standardized exam in school, the percentage of students who achieve a certain score will automatically be lower”
Exactly. If many, many more students are taking the test than would have in the past the scores will drop.
I see, said the blind man, to the deaf man, as they left the ‘score-talk theater.
“It reminds me of a puppy and his favorite chew toy. He won’t let go, no matter what.”
“Oh, so you’re a top dog now? If you don’t believe in ‘scores, then what’s that degree in
your tote bag? Ya don’t get one without passing ‘scores.”
“Cut it out. My scores are the real deal, based on real tests. These new ‘scores are
BS.”
“OK, then why do you cite them?”
” Because “they” do.”
“Huh? I thought you said “they” were full of BS.”
“Listen TROLL, go to a choice school then. Some of them don’t “have” to test. BUT,
be warned, you’d be better off with a community based, locally controlled, democraticly
elected school board system.”
“Look, you said the testing BS was handed down from “above”. That doesn’t seem like a
community based, locally controlled issue.”
“Like I said, go waste your time and my money on a choice school, but you still won’t
have an elected school board.”
“As far as I know, the school board negotiates the contracts that determine where
the money goes, class sizes, staffing…Would we have STRIKES, if the boards were
“for the children”?
“TROLL”
wait…While we are at the scoring and stack rating game look at the international placement of our eighth graders on tests of computer and information literacy and computational thinking relative to other “educational systems.” We are NOT number one…
Good heavens, we MUST HAVE more ed-tech pre-K to 12. Also financial literacy, SEL, tests of “deeper learning” and more adaptive personalized testing, non-stop—whatever the next big is… https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/icils/icils2018/theme1.asp
Yep, nothing quite like ed tech for pre-k. I am confident that kids would do quite well without any ed tech or computers in any classroom. And that includes high school. Computers are tools. Anyone can learn to use them effectively in a matter of a few days.
Gates/Coleman/Duncan was never interested in improving college readiness – no matter what they said or wrote. The unspoken agenda was ALWAYS to profit from the taxpayers – rob the workers to make the rich wealthier.
If the unspoken agenda was a success, then in their thinking, they were successful no matter how low the ACT scores end up as the years tick-tock by.
I’m not at all surprised.
Many school districts are paying for all of their juniors and seniors to take the ACT or the SAT in an attempt to create a more academic, college-going atmosphere. When all students take the test, even those who do not want to go go college, the scores are likely to drop.
In addition, for college preparatory high school juniors, the testing schedule is especially rigorous: in the space of six weeks, they have AP Tests (lasts two weeks, but not all students test every day), SBAC tests (lasts about two weeks; students test for 2-3 hours/day), possibly SAT Subject Tests (by far the best time to take them, at the end of their courses junior year), the SAT and the ACT. I think the students get pretty burned out on testing by the end, and the ACT is usually the very last test they take in early June, so the drop in scores doesn’t surprise me at all.
What is neglected in this article (maybe the data hasn’t been released yet?) is the correlation of scores to zip code and family income. With the downward trend in scores, what does that do to the gap between the scores of students who are from lower income homes vs the scores of students from higher income homes? Is the spread between the two groups getting wider? Worse, is there a middle group of students, or are student scores basically creating a U curve based on family income and school funding?
Which groups of students have dropping scores? My guess is that it isn’t kids from wealthy homes; those students almost always score well, because their parents can hire test prep tutors or pay for prep classes.
My guess is that scores are dropping for the low income students, which I believe indicates a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor, with a substantially shrinking middle group/class.
It is unfortunate and a tragedy, as our lack of healthcare and social supports is creating a generation of young minds which could have been nurtured to their highest potential, but instead, were left to flounder, and ultimately, find their success in life away from school.