Number of students taking college-entry test climbs

August 15, 2008 11:09 pm

— By Melissa Dunson
mdunson@joplinglobe.com
This past school year, several Joplin-area school districts posted higher composite scores on the American College Test, and even more districts chalked up increases in the number of students taking the test.
The increases in latter tallies, school officials suggest, mean the total number of students ready for college is rising.
The same thing goes for students across Missouri and the rest of the nation.
A record number of U.S. high-school students, 1.42 million, took the ACT in 2007-08. In Missouri, a record 47,240 took the test. That was an increase of 4 percent over the prior year.
Missouri’s average score held steady at 21.6, and the national average dropped only slightly from 21.2 to 21.1.
In Joplin, Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer said the R-8 district posted its highest ACT scores and most participation last year in a five-year span with an overall average of 22.
In addition, she said, 252 students took the test. In 2004, 222 students took the test.
She said 63 of the 252 students who took the test in Joplin scored 25 or above, and 21 recorded a score of 30 or above — more than double the number that scored that well just a year ago. Two students pegged scores of 35, only one point short of a perfect 36.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Besendorfer said. “Our scores are really great this year.”
Breaking local records
Neosho R-5 Superintendent Richard Page said the district has been increasing both the number of students who take the ACT and the district’s average composite score in recent years.
In 2007-08, the district posted a composite score of 21.4, compared with a score of 20.7 the previous year. In the same period, 159 students, the most for Neosho R-5 ever, took the test, Page said.
Deborah Swarens, the new Carthage R-9 assistant superintendent for education, said her district also posted a record for the number of students taking the test. Students raised the district’s composite to 22, and surpassed the state’s averages in every one of the four areas the ACT measures — English, math, reading and science.
Swarens said the district’s math scores are especially worth bragging about. In the last five years, the high school started offering students ACT math-preparation courses to try to boost those scores. They worked. During that time frame, Carthage’s average ACT math score went from 21.3 to 22.
In Webb City, Superintendent Ron Lankford said he saw a big 18.7 percent jump in the number of students who took the ACT in 2007-08, but the district’s composite score dropped slightly from 21.3 to 21.2 — still above the national average, he said. Despite the drop, Lankford pointed to the district’s reading scores that climbed a full point above its 2003 benchmark this past school year.
McDonald County High School Principal Mark Stanton noted different results. He said the number of students in the district taking the ACT remained steady last year, but the students raised the average composite score from 19.5 to 19.7.
Carl Junction’s results dipped slightly in both the number of students taking the test and the average score. But Kathy Tackett, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said the district is still way up from where it was four years ago. In 2004, Tackett said, 89 students took the test. This past year, 138 students did. The district’s average composite ACT score was 21.4.
Kansas
Kansas exceeded neighboring Missouri’s scores with an average composite of 22, and continues to score better than the rest of the nation. Those good scores could be because of a higher percentage of Kansas seniors, 74 percent, taking the test, compared with 43 percent nationally. About 24,000 seniors graduating last spring took the test.
State education officials were pleased with the results. This year’s average composite score was slightly higher than last year’s average of 21.9.
Fourteen states posted higher average composite scores, but none of them had as high a percentage of high school seniors taking the test.
The average composite ACT score in Baxter Springs, Kan., in 2007-08 was 18.3, with 47 percent of seniors taking test. That’s a score decline from 2006-07, when the school’s average composite was 20.4, but an increase from the 42 percent of seniors taking the test the year before.
Superintendent Dennis Burke said the score is a little lower than he would have liked, but added that there are fluctuations each year and a number of factors can affect the scores. He said students who took high-school courses that prepare them for college performed well on the ACT.
‘Pay off for life’
Several school administrators attributed some amount of students’ success last year on the ACT to increasing numbers of test-preparation courses in high school, and improvements to math and reading curriculum. But most of them agreed the biggest factor is more students taking the test and many of them scoring better is a unified effort to emphasize the importance of a college education.
“I think that we’re making students aware that a college education really does pay off for life,” Besendorfer said.
Schools are doing that in a variety of ways. Webb City last year began offering every sophomore the chance to take the ACT for free.
“That way, when they get their scores back, they have two years, not three months, to improve them,” Lankford said.
ACT research shows that 55 percent of students who took the test more than once increased their composite score.
Carl Junction has been the host for two ACT assessments a year for students during the last two years. The school also requires each department to include an ACT goal in its annual plans and publishes a “Word of the Day” in the school’s weekly bulletin to familiarize students with ACT and MAP terms.
“We’re trying to create a culture where expectations are high — not only to graduate from high school, but to be successful after that,” Swarens said.
The Associated Press, and Globe staff writers Roger McKinney and Derek Spellman contributed to this report.

A perfect score
The ACT is graded on a 1-to-36 scale. Last year, only 13 Missouri students received a coveted 36 on the test. Nationally, about one in 3,300 students scores a 36.
Source: www.act.org

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