How Much Growth toward College Readiness Is Reasonable to Expect in High School?

ISSUES IN COLLEGE READINESS How Much Growth toward College Readiness Is Reasonable to Expect in High School? Introduction Only 1 in 5 ACT-tested 2008 high school graduates are prepared for entry-level college courses in English Composition, College Algebra, social science, and Biology, while 1 in 4 are not prepared for college-level coursework in any of the four subject areas (ACT, 2008a). This lack of college readiness also means a lack of career readiness: while not every high school graduate plans to attend college, the majority of the fastest-growing jobs that require a high school diploma, pay a salary above the poverty line for a family of four, and provide opportunities for career advancement require knowledge and skills comparable to those expected of the first-year college student (ACT, 2006). Improving the college and career readiness of all our students will provide a better foundation of knowledge and skills to allow future workers to adapt to the changing requirements of a more technologically sophisticated and internationally competitive working world. An important question in preparing all students for college and career by the time they graduate from high school is that of determining how much growth in academic achievement typically occurs during high school and whether such growth can be accelerated so that more students are ready for college and career when they graduate from high school. The Study To answer this question, we first examined the average scores of a sample of approximately 150,000 students who participated in the three programs that make up the longitudinal assessment component of ACT’s College Readiness System: EXPLORE® (for students in grades 8 and 9), PLAN® (for students in grade 10), and the ACT® test (for students in grades 11 and 12). Each program contains four subject tests: English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science.1 With respect to racial/ethnic composition, geographic region, and annual family income, the demographic characteristics of the student sample roughly approximate those of the population of high school students nationwide. (See the Appendix for demographic information about the sample.) The average scores for each test are shown in Figure 1.2 1 The ACT also contains an optional Writing Test. 2 The three programs use the same score scale. The maximum possible score on each subject test is 25 for EXPLORE, 32 for PLAN, and 36 for the ACT. ©2009 by ACT, Inc. All rights reserved. The ACT® is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc. in the U.S.A. and other countries. EXPLORE® and PLAN® are registered trademarks of ACT, Inc. IC 050800090 Figure 1: Average Growth in Achievement between Eighth and Twelfth Grades 15.9 16.3 15.7 17.4 18.3 18.6 18.1 19.1 20.6 20.7 21.3 20.7 1.0 6.0 11.0 16.0 21.0 26.0 31.0 36.0 Score Growth: 4.7 Growth: 3.3 Growth: 5.6 Growth: 4.4 English (N = 148,885) Mathematics (N = 149,100) Reading (N = 148,968) Science (N = 148,760) EXPLORE PLAN ACT As the figure shows, the average amount of growth ranged from 3.3 score points on the Science Test to 5.6 score points on the Reading Test for the total sample. Given the average growth for all students shown in Figure 1, it would be informative to examine whether growth rates differ depending on the degree to which students are on target to becoming ready for college and career in the eighth grade, as defined by their success at meeting the College Readiness Benchmarks for EXPLORE in the eighth grade. ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks are the scores on the test indicating whether students who take EXPLORE and PLAN are on target to be ready for college-level work by the time they graduate from high school and whether students who take the ACT have reached this level of readiness. These Benchmarks, given below, have been empirically established using course grade data on more than 90,000 students in a nationally representative sample of postsecondary institutions. Table 1: ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks Test EXPLORE PLAN ACT English 13 15 18 Mathematics 17 19 22 Reading 15 17 21 Science 20 21 24 We divided our sample of students into three groups: those who were on target in eighth grade (i.e., who met or exceeded the EXPLORE College Readiness Benchmarks), those who were nearly on target (i.e., who were within 2 or fewer score points of meeting each EXPLORE Benchmark), and those who were off target (i.e., who were more than 2 score points from meeting each EXPLORE Be