How can we help more students prepare themselves for education and work? The national ACT Assessment results reaffirm previous conclusions:

• Students must start working in middle school or earlier to reach a college-ready level by the end of high school.
• Students must enroll in college-preparatory courses, and must take the most rigorous courses available to them throughout high school.
• Coordinated longitudinal tests must be used to measure progress and adjust programs along the way.

Taking challenging courses in high school and studying hard is the key to being ready for college and work.

This year’s results from the PLAN® assessment for tenth graders and the EXPLORE® assessment for eighth and ninth graders suggest no change. Without intervention now, those eighth through tenth graders show no sign of being better prepared for postsecondary programs or the working world than the 2004 high school graduates are; in fact, they appear to be heading for lower levels of preparation in math and science.

What is ACT doing to help address this crisis? We are using our research capabilities to help educators and policymakers understand what is happening.

We are studying specific course-taking patterns and their relationship to ACT scores. We have established benchmark ACT scores that correlate to likely successful completion of first-year college courses. We are conducting more workshops than ever to help high school and middle school educators use the data available to them to effectively prepare their students to a college-ready standard. We are studying each state’s learning standards, mapping them to our own Standards for Transition® to help everyone understand what being ready for college means.  

There is work to do in education, but the tools educators need are available, and practices that work have been identified. We can and must ensure that all high school graduates are ready for all of their options. Student access and opportunity are at stake.