Ranking Kentucky’s ACT scores against other states
We always get questions about how Kentucky stacks up against other states on the ACT whenever new scores come out (the 2014 scores were released yesterday).Unfortunately, several issues make it a little tricky to answer this request, so I explain later in this blog why I look at the performance of only white students, only in the 12 states where 100 percent ACT testing was conducted in 2014.
Here is a summary of Kentucky’s ACT Benchmark Score performance for white high school graduates in 2014:
• ENGLISH: Kentucky ranks second from the bottom among the 12 states that tested all graduates in 2014 and lost ground from its rank in 2013.
• MATHEMATICS: Kentucky ranks second from the bottom and made no relative improvement in ranking from 2013.
• READING: Kentucky ranks second from the bottom but did improve one slot from its performance in 2013.
• SCIENCE: Kentucky ranks second from the bottom and made no relative improvement from 2013.
• STUDENTS WHO MET BENCHMARK SCORES ACROSS ALL FOUR SUBJECTS: Kentucky ranks second from the bottom and made no relative improvement from 2013.
To learn more, including a discussion about why I limited my examination to only whites in certain states, just click the “Read more” link.
So, what’s tricky about doing state-to-state comparisons with the ACT?
First of all, participation on the ACT is voluntary in most states, and the participation rates vary significantly. For example, only nine percent of the 2014 high school graduates in Maine even took the ACT. In sharp contrast, all of the graduates in Kentucky and 11 other states took the ACT in 2014.
We can compare ourselves to those 11 other states that tested all students, but any comparison to Maine would not be really valid.
Thus, the first requirement in doing a state comparison to Kentucky with the ACT is to only use the 11 other states that test all their graduates.
Second, there are significant racial achievement gaps on the ACT. Furthermore, racial demographics now vary dramatically from state to state. As a consequence of these factors, you really can’t get a good picture about state to state performance by only considering the overall average scores. If you only consider overall scores, states like Kentucky with very high white enrollment get an unfair advantage. They look abnormally good even though their white performance might be rather low. That advantage quickly dissolves once you look at comparisons by race.
So, the second requirement to doing state test comparisons, including those using the ACT, is to break scores out by race.
By the way, since ACT reports that three of four Kentucky high school graduates in 2014 were white (see Table 1.5 in the 2014 ACT Profile Report for Kentucky), looking at white scores across the states gives us a good idea of how Kentucky’s schools perform for the vast majority of our students.
So, how do Kentucky’s whites compare to their counterparts in the other 100 percent ACT testing states?
ENGLISH: Figure 1 shows the percentage of all white high school graduates in each state, public, private and home school combined, that met or exceeded the ACT Benchmark score (18) that shows they are ready for credit bearing freshman college English classes.
FIGURE 1
White ACT English in 100 Percent Participation States in 2014
Note Kentucky is in a three-way tie for the second-lowest score. Only North Carolina, which only started to use the ACT last year, did worse. Eight of the 12 states did better.
By the way, I did a blog with a similar analysis last year. Among the 11 states that tested all, or virtually all, students with the ACT in 2013, Kentucky ranked third from the bottom in English. So, we lost ground this year in English for our white students.
MATH: Figure 2 shows the percentage of all white high school graduates in each state, public, private and home school combined, that met or exceeded the ACT Benchmark score (22) that shows they are ready for credit bearing freshman college class in Algebra.
FIGURE 2
White ACT Math in 100 Percent Participation States in 2014
Note Kentucky once again is in the second worst performance slot. This time, 10 of the 12 states outperformed us.
In 2013 Kentucky also ranked second from the bottom. So, Kentucky made no relative improvement in ACT math ranking in 2014 for white students.
READING: Figure 3 shows the percentage of all white high school graduates in each state, public, private and home school combined, that met or exceeded the ACT Benchmark score (22) that shows they actually have the reading skills needed for college coursework.
FIGURE 3
White ACT Reading in 100 Percent Participation States in 2014
Note Kentucky once again is in the second worst performance slot. Once again, 10 of the 12 states outperformed us.
Last year, Kentucky ranked last in reading, so we improved one slot in this subject in 2014.
SCIENCE: The last individual subject tested on the ACT is science. Figure 4 shows the percentage of all white high school graduates in each state, public, private and home school combined, that met or exceeded the ACT Benchmark score (23) that shows they actually have the skills required by a freshman biology course.
FIGURE 4
White ACT Science in 100 Percent Participation States in 2014
Kentucky is in a tie for the second worst performance. Nine of the 12 states outperformed us.
In 2013 Kentucky also ranked second to last, so there has been no relative improvement in ACT science for Kentucky’s white students, either.
FULL PROFICIENCY ACROSS ALL SUBJECTS: Finally, ACT provides one more data set which shows the percentage of students in each state that scored at or above the Benchmark Score for all four academic areas. Figure 5 shows how that looks.
FIGURE 5
White ACT Across All 4 Subjects in 100 Percent Participation States in 2014
Overall, among the states that test all students with the ACT college entrance test, Kentucky is in a two-way tie for second-lowest performance in getting its many white students fully ready for college.
Kentucky ranked second from the bottom last year in the All Four Benchmark Scores comparison, as well. So, no change was posted in this last comparison, as well.
Technical Note:
The data sources used to compile the graphs in this blog include Figures 3.1 to 3.5 in each state’s ACT Profile Report for 2014.