Check out the full article here: Catalyst Chicago
Most interesting addition to the conversation (in my estimation) is this chart:
While certainly the ACT is not even close to a full or complete stand-in for measures of true intellectual and academic growth one thing is certain - that without a 21 cumulative ACT score even applying to most universities is a bridge too far, let alone acceptance.
We can, and we should have a larger discussion about the true aims of a high school education, and how we should measure those aims, and the stakes of testing. We can and we should have a discussion of what it means to be college ready and what criteria universities should use for admissions decisions. We can and we should have a pedagogical discussion about the best ways to help students grow academically within their high school years.
But, at the moment a sad fact remains in Chicago: for students who enter high school behind there are only four non-selective schools in the city that consistently (on average) move them across a threshold for college application - and that is far too few.
I made a similar comment on the original article, but I'll make the same point here just for fun:
ReplyDeleteThis chart displays the average EXPLORE scores of a school's 9th graders in SY2011 compared to the average ACT score of a school's 11th graders in SY2013. It does NOT show growth. If we wanted to see growth, we would only look at the students that were continuously enrolled in each school from SY2011 to SY2013. Even if we had that, without additional school and student data (including attrition and SPED rates, demographic information, etc.) any conclusions would be highly suspect.
This chart shows a very interesting and possibly meaningful correlation, but presenting it on its own, absent of any context, and claiming causation is highly misleading.
Thought I should clarify: I don't see you claiming causation, though the author of the original article certainly did.
ReplyDeleteEven more interesting is that we keep talking about '21' as the ACT benchmark for college readiness but the actual standard set by ACT is a 21 composite, 18 in English, 22 in math, 22 in reading and 23 in science. According to ACT, if all 5 of those scores are not met or exceeded, then college readiness has not been achieved. In other words, we often label some of kids 'college ready' once they've hit a 21, but that is false. There is an article about it here: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-11-01/news/ct-met-school-report-card-college-ready-20131103_1_college-readiness-figures-college-readiness-college-entrance-exam
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