The nation’s high school students continue to struggle in the subject areas that are deemed essential for later success, according to the latest ACT results, which show another decline in performance across the four subjects tested, as well as a shrinking proportion of test-takers demonstrating they are prepared for college-level coursework.
The national average scores on the subject area sections of the ACT—math, English, reading, and science—as well as the composite score, all dropped slightly, along with the percentage of students hitting college- and career-ready benchmarks.
Amid the overall decline, students taking the recommended core curriculum in high school are maintaining the same levels of college readiness in those areas over the past five years. The consistently good performance of students taking the core curriculum sends a message to educators to start offering “rigorous courses to all students,” said Marten Roorda, ACT’s chief executive officer.
The national average for students meeting college-readiness benchmarks in math and English each dropped one percentage point, to 39 percent and 59 percent, respectively, in 2019, according to results released Wednesday. Scores decreased by a tenth of a point for the composite score, to 20.7, and for both English and math, to 20.1 and 20.4 respectively.
The test had close to 132,000 fewer takers compared to 2018.
Concerns about college readiness persisted with students in underserved populations, as only 81 percent of those students met one of the four benchmarks and 9 percent met three or four benchmarks.
Education spending up: test scores down. Go figure....
