August 27, 2015      3:08 PM
ACT participation up in Texas, college readiness remains flat
Texas, unlike many states, has not collected course-level data for students until now, so it has been difficult to track changes in the requirements for a high school diploma
A
record number of Texas graduates took the ACT college admissions test last
year, but gaps in data make it difficult to assess what is going to keep those
students on track for being ready to complete a certification or college
degree.
Just
over 40 percent of the Class of 2015, or 124,764 students, took the ACT.
Numbers for the SAT, out typically in October, are expected to be larger.
Because the SAT and ACT are a component of the state’s indices on college
readiness, the majority of students do take one test, or both. For the Class of
2013, it was 66 percent, although the percentage can be as high as 98 or 99
percent for a high school such as Westlake in Eanes
or Memorial
in Spring Branch.
What
hasn’t changed is the overall performance on the exams.
Texas,
unlike many states, has not collected course-level data for students until now,
so it has been difficult to track changes in the requirements for a high school
diploma. For instance, it is not clear whether Texas’ requirement of four years
of science and math made a significant impact on the scores on college
admission tests.
By Kimberly Reeves
|
Copyright August 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
|