Building Momentum: The Condition of Progress Toward College Readiness

A PROFILE OF 2014 STUDENTS WHO TOOK THE ACT EXPLORE® AND ACT PLAN® TESTSBuilding Momentum: The Condition of Progress Toward College Readiness 5442© 2016 by ACT, Inc. All rights reserved. The ACT® test is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc., in the USA and other countries. The ACT National Curriculum Survey®, ACT Explore®, and ACT Plan® are registered trademarks of ACT, Inc. 3Building Momentum: The Condition of Progress toward College ReadinessAbout Building Momentum: The Condition of Progress toward College Readiness 2014 Over nearly six decades, ACT has been a trusted leader in providing research and data about student readiness for college and careers. This report looks at the progress toward college readiness made by middle school students and students at the midpoint of high school who took ACT Explore® and ACT Plan® during the 2013–2014 school year.1 The report offers insights that will help guide our collective efforts to improve college and career readiness for the generation of students now making their way through the US education system.ACT has developed a suite of integrated, curriculum-based assessments that provide a longitudinal approach to assessment, career and educational planning, instructional support, and evaluation. At the time data were collected for this report, there were three components to the system—ACT Explore for 8th-grade students, ACT Plan for 10th-grade students, and the ACT® test for 11th- and 12th-grade students. In 2014, ACT began to migrate users from ACT Explore and ACT Plan to the new ACT Aspire® system, which measures student skills from grade 3 through early high school (grades 9–10). All of the assessments measure English, mathematics, reading, and science skills in addition to behavioral aspects and career interests, and are designed to provide insights into college and career readiness.In the future, ACT plans to expand its research and data collection to cover not only academic achievement, but also student behaviors and goals. These additional insights will help individuals better prepare for success throughout their lives, from kindergarten through career. The new efforts will broaden and support ACT’s core mission: helping people achieve education and career success.What Do the ACT Explore and ACT Plan Benchmarks Mean for College Readiness?The ACT Explore and ACT Plan Benchmarks2 can be used to gauge a student’s progress in the 8th and 10th grades toward becoming academically ready for college. These Benchmarks gauge this progress by estimating a student’s probability of successfully meeting the four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks. Students who meet a Benchmark on ACT Explore or ACT Plan are likely to have a 50% chance of earning grade of a B or higher or about a 75% chance of earning a grade of C or higher in the corresponding college courses by the time they graduate from high school.ACT utilizes data from the ACT assessment to measure information about academic performance in the context of college and career readiness for The Condition of College & Career Readiness, which is published annually. However, looking at progress toward college readiness during the middle school 1 The data in this report are from the 2009–2010 to 2013–2014 ACT Explore and ACT Plan National Data Release Files. Prior to the 2012–2013 school year, students were excluded from analyses if they tested under extended time or participated in an equating study. Starting in the 2012–2013 school year, students were excluded from analyses if they participated in an equating study, but students tested under ACT-approved accommodated administrations that result in college-reportable ACT scores were included. ACT Explore analyses were limited to 8th-grade participants, and ACT Plan analyses were limited to 10th-grade participants. Students were only included if they had a valid (non-missing) ACT Composite score. For the 2013–2014 ACT Explore cohort, N = 1,065,332; for the 2013–2014 ACT Plan cohort, N = 1,335,510.2 The ACT Explore and ACT Plan College Readiness Benchmarks used in this report are aligned for the sample of students described in Footnote 1. In 2013, new ACT College Readiness Benchmarks were developed for students taking ACT Explore and ACT Plan during the 2012–2013 school year. The new Benchmarks were used for any results pertaining to students tested during and/or after the 2012–2013 school year, whereas the old Benchmarks were used for any results pertaining to students tested prior to the 2012–2013 school year. For more information, please see the “Notes” section of this report. 4 BUILDING MOMENTUM: THE CONDITION OF PROGRESS TOWARD COLLEGE READINESSand early high school years—focusing on the number or percentages of students meeting or exceeding the ACT Explore and ACT Plan Benchmarks—adds to the college readiness conversation by providing meaningful and compelling information about the earlier academic achievement of students. For students, parents, teachers, and other e