Is our students' education in trouble?
ACT scores released this week announced a 30-year low in average test scores across America. What needs to be done? How do we fix this?
The average test score on the ACT this year is 19.8. Compare that with 20.3 last year. It has hovered around 20 or so for more than a decade.
"The scare they're wringing their hands about is 19.8 or something like that, which is the same score they had forever until they changed the test," said Stephen Waddell, an education professor at the University of North Texas and former superintendent of the Lewisville Independent School District.
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Test scores have not only hovered around this amount since the test was revised in 2020, but this year, there was another big change, Waddell says.
"Colleges, even some of the largest and most prestigious, have been dropping entrance exam requirements. So those people taking the test have been changing and those impact test scores," said Waddell.
It's two-tenths of a point difference and fewer students even bothering with taking the test certainly has an impact on the numbers. And obviously, the pandemic does, too.
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"That really needs an asterisk beside it so we remember the students being assessed on this content. We were taught this content in this global pandemic. And not just in 2020, but the years after that, where we were struggling to make sure we have digital tools," said Mary Kemper, executive director of instructional leadership at the Coppell Independent School District.
Kemper says it's one data point the district will consider, but she, too, doesn't see a great cause for alarm, especially considering the students who took the ACT this year lost more time in the classrooms than others.
Admissions leaders say they're aware of the challenges students faced and the slight drops in scores shouldn't really hurt perspective college kids. It's just part of the changing realities of education post-pandemic.
