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ACT College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards Help Schools Set High Expectations
ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks and College Readiness Standards™ are helping an Ohio high school send nearly all of its graduates to college.
“The College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards match the expectations we have for our students. We expect them to go to college and about 96 percent of them do,” said Ann Bruce, a guidance counselor and coordinator for EXPLORE® and PLAN® testing at Solon High School (SHS) in Solon, Ohio.
Nanci Bush, English department teacher leader at Solon High School in Solon, Ohio, leads her class in an activity.
Administrators rely on ACT data to ensure students are performing at high academic levels. “The ACT College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards spell out exactly where students need to be achieving to be ready for college. We draw on that information to prepare our students for the rigor of college.”
Department heads and teachers help students progress by reviewing their EXPLORE and PLAN test results, ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards for each content area, and other data. They adjust the curriculum and provide additional lessons in subjects where they see gaps.
Bruce and her five fellow guidance counselors meet individually with students to review their test scores and to determine whether they met the college readiness level for each subject area. They provide resources for improving academic weaknesses and maintaining academic strengths.
SHS is one of many schools across the country that rely on the College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards to prepare students for postsecondary success. At Virginia High School (VHS) in Virginia, Minnesota, administrators turn to the College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards to help their students stay ahead of the state average ACT Composite score.
Virginia High School technology instructor Greg Foster assists students in his Introduction to Engineering class.
The 2009 average ACT Composite score for Minnesota was 22.7; Virginia High School’s average ACT Composite score was 23.7.
“The College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards allow us to examine the content and rigor of our course offerings and improve them, so our students can remain consistently above the state average ACT Composite score,” said John Vukmanich, dean of students at Virginia High School.
VHS administrators monitor the school’s curriculum to ensure it meets state standards, which are closely tied to ACT’s College Readiness Standards. “The ACT data help us provide a rigorous high school curriculum that successfully prepares our students for college,” he added.
At Bend–La Pine Schools in Bend, Oregon, administrators are counting on the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards to help them reach a district goal: 80 percent of graduates achieving an ACT Composite score of 24 or higher.
Bill Goodall, math teacher at La Pine High School in Oregon, helps a student with an assignment.
“The College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards have changed the way we think about student performance and achievement results for K–12,” said Vicki Van Buren, executive director of high school education for Bend–La Pine Schools. “We consider them to be more rigorous than our state standards and benchmarks.”
Educators monitor students’ progress using the EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks in grades eight, nine, ten, and eleven. “We have learned that to meet ACT’s benchmarks, our students need to be exceeding—not merely meeting—our state benchmarks each year beginning in grade three,” she added. “We are very committed to offering EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT. Even with two years’ worth of data, we are seeing changes in decisions our schools are making about curriculum and instruction.”
What Are ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks and Standards?
ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks are the minimum ACT test scores required for students to have a high probability of success in credit-bearing college courses—English Composition, social sciences courses, College Algebra, or Biology. In addition to the Benchmarks for the ACT, there are corresponding EXPLORE and PLAN Benchmarks for use by students who take these programs to gauge their progress in becoming college ready in the eighth and tenth grades, respectively. And for students taking COMPASS®, a computer-adaptive course placement assessment used by colleges, ACT has identified the College Readiness Benchmarks on the COMPASS scale corresponding to success in credit-bearing community college courses.
ACT’s College Readiness Benchmark scores are directly linked to ACT’s College Readiness Standards, which describe the knowledge and skills students need to succeed in credit-bearing courses based on empirical evidence. College and career readiness standards are vital to ensuring that U.S. students are taught the rigorous skills they need to compete with their peers in other states and, particularly, in high-performing countries around the world. ACT research shows that students who have attained the essential college and career readiness skills, which are measured by the College Readiness Benchmarks, are more likely to succeed in postsecondary education than those who have not. ACT’s College Readiness Standards are directly measured by the test, making the ACT unique among college readiness exams.