California ACT scores exceed U.S.
But only a third are ready for college science
This year’s high school graduates from California outperformed the nation on the ACT, and on average are better prepared for college work, according to the annual report of the college entrance exam. But in the same breath, consider two qualifiers: Only a quarter of California high school students took the ACT, compared with 49 percent nationwide, so it’s a self-selected group; and, while improving, the nation’s test results aren’t a lot to brag about.
In California, 30 percent of the Class of ’11 had high enough scores to be deemed ready for college in all four parts of the ACT exam: English, reading, math and science, compared with a record high 25 percent of students nationwide. In 2007, 27 percent of California students were college ready in all four. ACT defines college ready as having at least 75 percent odds of getting a C and 50 percent chance of a B in a first-year college course at a two- or four-year college.
Broken down by subject matter:
- 72 percent of California students were deemed ready for freshman English composition (66 percent nationwide);
- 57 percent were ready for a history or social science course (52 percent nationwide);
- 57 percent were ready for college Algebra (45 percent nationwide);
- 34 percent were ready for Biology or a college science course (30 percent nationwide);
- 48 percent of California students met three or four of the college readiness benchmarks compared with only 40 percent nationwide. But 23 percent — nearly a quarter — were not ready for one college course, compared with 28 percent nationwide.
The ACT is more popular in the Midwest and South than in the West and Northeast. While the number of ACT takers exceeded the SAT for the first time this year, in California, 99,000 students took the ACT while 211,000 took the SAT. The SAT scores won’t be available until next month, but the 2010 scores for California closely mirrored those of the nation, except for in writing, where California students did significantly better.
ACT is becoming more popular in California, with a 60 percent increase in takers since 2007. During that time, Hispanics have registered the sharpest increase, rising from 21 percent of California test takers to 35 percent in four years.
Both SAT and ACT are accepted by the University of California and California State University. The ACT is more of a curriculum-based test of high school knowledge.
The disparities in achievements among ethnicities that start in early elementary grades not surprisingly follow the same patterns with the ACT (see chart).
ACT determined college readiness based on scores in four subject areas. Here is the ethnic and racial breakdown for the class of 2011 in California. Click to enlarge. (source: ACT)
Only 10 percent of African-American and 26 percent of Hispanic Californians are college-ready in science, compared with 49 percent of Asians and 51 percent of White students. While 69 percent of White and 65 percent of Asian students have met three or four of the college-readiness benchmarks, only 19 percent of African-American and 25 percent of Hispanics have.
ACT found that students who take what it calls a core curriculum – comparable to the A-G course load required for admission to a UC or CSU campus – are far more likely to be prepared for a post-secondary education. And it said that the best predictor of college readiness would be the level of achievement in middle school. “If students are to be ready for college or career when they graduate, their progress must be monitored closely so that deficiencies in foundational skills can be identified and remediated early, in upper elementary and middle school,” the report said.
ACT also looked at the future job market and student aspirations and found an ominous disconnect in California, especially for Silicon Valley (see graph).
California students' career interests appear out of sync with fast-growing job opportunities. Click to enlarge (source: ACT).
The five fastest growing careers in California demanding at least an associate’s degree will be, in order, education, management, computer/information specialties, marketing/sales and community services. Ten percent of new jobs by 2018 will be in the area of computer and information. But only 2 percent of students who took the ACT expressed interest in this field.
Thank you for this carefully disaggregated information. What is the breakdown for private school vs. public schools? Is the ACT becoming more common because the private colleges, in some cases, prefer it? I absolutely agree that the upper elementary and middle school years are critical for math and science, yet California still has hundreds of middle schools that don’t teach Algebra 1 until 8th grade, and are a year behind schools that build their elementary school math around the expectation that a good proportion of the students will take Algebra 1 in 7th, and then Geometry in 8th, so that the students are consistently engaged in higher level math. Until California employs math, chemistry and physics specialist teachers in middle schools, as in many competitive international school systems, there will continue to be a disconnect between the education, interests and skills that are needed to compete in the global workforce. It continues to be a social disaster that the US is importing hundreds of thousands of engineers and computer specialists, to say nothing of skilled machinists and “practical” scientists, when the schools are stuck in life sciences, a smattering of a second language in 7th or 8th grade, and no CS until 10th grade. Well, apart from the keyboard skills and web surfing that now count at CS prior to AP. My son has commented on the continuing sad representation of women in engineering and CS at Stanford (u/g), and also that even though he took APs in La Jolla, and calculus at UCSD in 11th grade, he was often behind students from the top private schools, and public schools from some other states. I admit that he was observing the elite students, but he had already taken college classes to prepare for Stanford entrance (for physics), and yet realized that other students were offered far more in their high schools. So where is that gap forming that consistently provides inconsistencies at all levels of education – leading to chasms at ACT and SAT? Somewhere in the mix there is an assumption in the US that elementary school is all about literacy and reading. I’m still glad I was educated in England when math and science were so valued – a long time ago!
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A hearty “Here! Here! (Pip, pip, eh what?!)” for Ms. Moore’s comments.
It should be noted that 8 states (including Michigan, Illinos, and Colorado) require all HS juniors to take the ACT which has to skew the averages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_%28test%29
I’ve been tutoring both ACT and SAT among other things and the main differences are the math in ACT is a tiny bit harder than the SAT but the wording is much more straightforward. The SAT math questions are not hard at all for anyone with algebra 2 or pre-calculus but the wording is more obfuscatory than one could imagine. The College Board folks must stay up all night thinking of ways to make the wording as confusing as possible. Another difference is that on the ACT all math questions are multiple choice while the SAT has some (about 10-12) open ended questions requiring students to enter a number.
In the English language areas the ACT does not require as much vocabulary. This is huge for many students. One student who was not doing well at all on SAT English areas turned out not to understand most of the vocabulary in either the question or the answer – on ACT English-related parts turned out to be one of her better areas. In addition, the questions on SAT are sometimes dubious. I could argue either way for a number of the interpretations of the SAT reading passages.
The science part of ACT doesn’t really require any knowledge of science. It certainly helps but the ability to read charts and tables and a comfort level with the basics of science should be enough. This not anything against it just to say that how good a predictor it is for a science major is dubious. The SAT-II subject tests are much better predictors of success in college. The UC did extensive studies and (HS-GPA + SAT-II) scores were the best predictors ( http://www.ucop.edu/news/sat/research.html . Adding in SAT-I scores didn’t make any difference at all.
Finally, the SAT-I and ACT are both extremely amenable to coaching. Any test is, of course, but to make it really a fair indicator would require that everyone be coached in how to take the test which is not a bad idea and some states do that – Michigan is one I believe. The coaching for the ACT is NOT learning some useless test-specific tricks or traps but essentially a review of all the math from Algebra-1 through Geometry and precalculus and a review of all the basic English grammar and reading skills that everyone should know. That is why I would like to see the ACT required and counted in the API. It is a good final test of the basic English and math that every student should know and is much less “tricky” than SAT-I. Fixes the cheating issue which aside from providing a good laugh (”If you test us we’ll just cheat so that is why testing is bad!” ????) puts everything in question including educators basic honesty.
It would be great if the SAT-II subject tests were part of the API or whatever it will be called. Those have been shown to be a good and lasting predictor of college success, even more so when other socioeconomic factors are accounted for – see the excellent analysis here by a UC president:
http://www.ucop.edu/pres/speeches/achieve.htm
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Thanks for clarifying the distinctions between SAT and ACT, MichelG. Interesting idea of requiring ACT of all CA students and incorporating that into the API. What do others think?
Sorry, Sue, ACT does not release breakdowns between students from private and public schools — scores or participation rates.
One clarification: CSU schools don’t require SAT or ACT scores for students with a 3.0 or higher GPA.
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What would Chicken Little have to say if she came out and found that atmospheric conditions were actually better then this time last year? Something like: “ while improving… [they] aren’t a lot to brag about.”
Just think if the ACT results had been worse: test score-ageddon.
More diversion from the fact that this state is turning away tens of thousands of qualified students from colleges, universities, and community colleges. Let’s not talk about the real issues. Someone might suggest a real solution that doesn’t involve scape-goating teachers and unions. Where would we be then?
And, what qualities do students of African American and Hispanic communities shares besides the relatively low ACT scores? Why darned if it isn’t poverty. Isn’t that a coincidence?
Let’s try an exercise in reverse here. instead of taking good news like improved scores and bending over backwards to suggest that’s “not a lot to brag about,” let’s see how seemingly bad news, like scores and college readiness, are really good news.
The numbers of minority students taking SAT and ACT tests are indicators of a triumph of social upheaval, and a legacy of the 1960s. More and more kids from social and economic backgrounds that never considered college as a part of their future now do so routinely. The economy and budget cut-backs have increased the difficulty of completing the dream, but in high school the dream is still there. Then there are the kids who arrive at college not “college-ready” and require the dreaded “remedial course work.” The CSU system reports these are predominately those same minority students and that the majority of them complete the work in one semester. Though CA’s current drought of revenues have worsened the picture we have more minority kids anticipating going to college and more rather rapidly qualifing for credit towards graduation. These represent two significant social equity triumphs for this nation.
A side note: A few years ago some research was done on college level “remedial classes.” It found that, nationally, about 2% of college/university budgets went to support those classes. The median age of students in the classes was 25. In other words, they were re-entry students, some 7 years removed from the K-12 experience.
Yet another side-note; In the late 1990s our local newspaper did a series of articles on “Telecom Valley around Petaluma, CA. This during the tech boom. Two things stood out in my mind. First, was that there was a reverse trend of moving off-shored tech jobs back to the mainland, usually from India. The second, was a failed attempt to bring in student interns from top universities. The interns left early. The jobs were boring. Think Dilbert. Sitting in a cube all day pounding out code was not their dreams fulfilled.
I might also suggest that science, as much of it has been taught the last decade-that is standards based and standardized to the point of stultification-hasn’t done much to stir up interest in students. Also, the grape-vine from the newly empolyed and down to students filling out anecdotal data for the ACT is pretty solid. If there were large numbers of really interesting, fulfilling jobs in tech the word would get out and you’d see more enthusiasm in those charts.
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Very few students are ready for algebra in 8th grade, and the number of kids who take algebra three times or more is mindboggling. All we did by requiring 8th graders to take algebra is increase the failure rate, increase (by a very small number) the number of blacks and Hispanic 8th graders to achieve proficient or advanced in 8th grade algebra (but not, I’m pretty sure, overall algebra achievement). To the extent that kids are capable of taking algebra in seventh grade, both public and private schools are increasing the number of seventh graders taking it–and it’s not doing a single bit for math achievement. We did just fine requiring algebra in 8th grade for decades. It’s certainly not even remotely relevant to our achievement levels.
Michael G is confused about the ACT. He is comparing the ACT English section to the SAT Reading section. The SAT has only had a writing section for six years, and the CSU still doesn’t count it for admissions. (Incidentally, while it is theoretically true that the SAT/ACT is not required for CSU admissions, it is for all impacted campuses. So if you’re going to a CSU that doesn’t require the SAT/ACt, you’re going to a pretty mediocre school. Most of the good campuses do require it.)
I have coached the SAT, the ACT, and four subject tests (English Lit, Math 2c, and both History tests), as well as APs in five subjects (two English, two History, Gov) for the past 8 years. While there’s much talk about the Subject tests being “more predictive”, the only two tests that were found to be predictive were the English test and the Math 1c test. Since the research, the SAT has been changed to include the English test and incorporate Math 1c subject matter into the SAT 1 Math section. The only two tests that were once found somewhat predictive, in other words, are now part of the SAT. Except, of course, CSU doesn’t count the writing test and most schools outside the UC don’t look at it. So much for being predictive.
The rest of the subject tests (which, by the way, haven’t been called SAT-II for six years), were not found to be particularly predictive, especially since the students could choose which test they took.
One area where both the SAT and ACT reign supreme, although it’s never discussed, is in the area of predicting college READINESS, rather than college SUCCESS. The subject tests produce too many false negatives, APs aren’t widespread enough, grades are useless. Most public universities throughout the nation have an SAT/ACT cut score that exempts the student from remediation/placement testing; most students are placed based on SAT/ACT scores.
While I love the ACT and think it a far superior test than the SAT for low ability kids, its time requirements are demanding. Consequently, the ACT’s declaration on the college readiness of students is utterly useless. All but the top students in reading and science are underperforming.
The state is not turning away tens of thousands of qualified students. Forty percent of the admitted students to the CSU campuses are remedial level in math and/or english; even the UCs accept a lamentably high number of students who can’t pass their Subject A test.
“The CSU system reports these are predominately those same minority students and that the majority of them complete the work in one semester.”
They say that, but I am deeply skeptical that this is true–unless acceptance rates have pushed out the less qualified students, so they are only accepting the higher ability remedial students.
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Cal writes that “Very few students are ready for algebra in 8th grade, and the number of kids who take algebra three times or more is mindboggling. All we did by requiring 8th graders to take algebra is increase the failure rate, increase (by a very small number) the number of blacks and Hispanic 8th graders to achieve proficient or advanced in 8th grade algebra (but not, I’m pretty sure, overall algebra achievement). ”
Essentially everything that Cal says in this fragment is baseless and incorrect. The only thing that may be correct is when she says that “the number of kids who take algebra three times or more is mindboggling.” This number is not published anywhere by CDE and, in any case, we don’t know what boggles Cal’s mind. Given that, perhaps these numbers are indeed mindboggling to her — we cannot be responsible for what she may imagine this number to be.
But for all the rest we have data, not just Cal’s imagination and psychological reactions. The number of students that successfully (proficient & advanced) took Algebra 1 by grade 8 has risen from 52,000 in 2002 to over 160,000 in 2011. This does not comport with Cal’s “very few students” — in fact, it is over 1/3 of the cohort. The failure rate of Algebra 1 takers by grade 8 (below basic and far below basic) stayed unchanged at about 17% even as the number of takers grew rapidly, contrary to Cal’s claim that the failure rate increased. Finally, the increase of blacks and Hispanic achieving proficient and above in Algebra 1 by grade 8 between 2003 and 2011 exceeded by far the average increases of the whole cohort and increased from 12 ,000 to 65,000. If Cal calls this a “very small number” then I worry about her sense of numeracy.
I don’t know where Cal picked her ideas about California student readiness and success on Algebra 1 by grade eight. The only thing I know is that she certainly did not use STAR data. And that she has a lively imagination.
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In fact, for decades the usual grade to take Algebra I was 9th grade in CA. The impetus for driving this down to middle school was A Nation At Risk. That exercise in exaggeration and manipulation looked at the success of the Japanese economy and suggested it was success in international tests and 8th grade Algebra that was responsible and that US schools were awash in “mediocrity.” Actually it was more about the management of the US auto industry and its commitment to “planned obsolescence” that was the culprit. When Japan’s economy tanked and the US economy soared a few years later there was no subsequent assertion that it must be the success of US schools that was responsible for the economic success. In fact, it was that same group of “mediocre” 17 year olds in the 1980s who were the belt-buckle of the highly productive 1990s work force.
There is no evidence, that I am aware of, to suggest that shoving Algebra down to middle school has accomplished anything for students, the schools, or the economy. (There’s a bit of heresy for you.)
Cal, I don’t know what you’ve been reading, ACT test manuals perhaps. Every major new source (LA Times, SF Chronicle, et al) have reported on the cuts to enrollments caused by Grover Norquist’s “CA Budget Crisis.” There have been tens of thousands of qualified students turned away from UC & CSU. Those budgets were not as “protected” as the EC/K-12 budget. Of course, there is then a cascade effect that rolls through the community college system. LA Times just reported on community college summer school programs that had thousands of students enrolled that, this year, were down to under 150.
Maybe you’re using your personal definition of “qualified students” rather than UC/CSU’s definition. And, I don’t know what advantage the CSU system might find in misreporting who is taking “remedial” classes.
There are other issues here. How many students “qualified” to attend UC/CSU don’t because of increased costs? How many students, particularly at the community colleges, are seen as being “unsuccessful” (and, thereby, the community colleges are deemed “failing”) because students can’t get the credit/transfer course they need because of cut-backs and overcrowding. The community college folks estimate that every increase of a couple of bucks per unit that they lose tens of thousands of students. Just today it was reported that UC will now collect more in student tuition than it will in state funding.
There’s a great gig here going on for the pundit class, the business-roundtable types, and the “crisis in the schools” cottage industry. Criticize the chronically underfunded K-12 system for not preparing students for college. Don’t fund the UC/CSU/ community college systems for number of students who are qualified for college. Now you can bemoan how all of this “mediocrity” is handicapping US competiveness.
By the way, according to the World Economic Forum the US after having been the most competitive world economy for decades, has now lost its place mostly to the “socialist” Nordic countries. This has to do with “instability in the financial sector.” Obviously, teachers, their unions, and their retirement programs are to blame for that.
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