I have to admit that I was surprised by a recent Chicago Tribune study that said that eight of 10 public high school juniors in Illinois aren’t ready for college classes in all subjects. I don’t think that I’m naive, but I found that number to be mind boggling. What does this study say about public high schools in the State of Illinois?
The ACT Scores Are In
The newspaper calculated college readiness figures from student ACT scores that were released for the first time under a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Tribune reported that the ACT sets its readiness scores at 18 in English, 21 in reading, 22 in math and 24 in science. The highest possible score is 36.
The Tribune looked at the scores of more than 133,000 Illinois juniors required to take the ACT during state testing in April. Overall, just 19.3 percent met readiness scores in all subjects and more than 35 percent didn’t meet any benchmarks.
“I will hear a story about a student who maybe fell far short of one or two or three benchmarks and went on to college and did well,” Paul Weeks, an assistant vice president of the nonprofit ACT company, said. “But when we look across all the data, that is not the case.”
Names of the students were omitted from the data provided by the Illinois State Board of Education to the newspaper to protect the students’ privacy.
The newspaper’s analysis found the students who fell below the readiness threshold in every subject were disproportionately black, Latino and low-income. Fifty-five percent of students who missed every benchmark were poor, compared to about 33 percent of all students tested.
Students met the benchmark most often in English and least often in science.
Who’s to Blame?
These numbers really have me wondering who’s to blame for these dismal and embarrassing results? Is it the board of education? Is it the school administrators? Could it be the teachers? How about the parents? Are we just raising unmotivated kids who aren’t concerned about their futures? Or is it that in 2010, in the United States of America, that things really aren’t separate, but equal?