8/18/05
HOORAY: NEBRASKA #12 ON
THE ACT, AND #2 REGIONALLY
Nebraska came out very
well in Wednesday's announcement of average ACT scores. Last year's test-takers
averaged 21.8, ranking us 12th in the nation, and second among the
seven Midwestern states around us.
Not only that, but
three-fourths of the pool of Nebraska students took the test, a significantly
higher participation rate than most of the states whose averages beat us. Only
Minnesota and Wisconsin had a higher average score and a participation rate
that was even close to Nebraska's, and even then, more of our kids tried taking
the test than did theirs.
So this is good – very
good. The problem is the score is not that great: 21.8 on a scale of 36 is
nothing to write home about. It would be interesting to compare Nebraska public
school scores with Nebraska private school scores. That might paint a different
picture entirely.
In analyzing averages,
you have to consider two numbers: the score, and the participation rate.
Nebraska had the second-highest score and the second-highest participation rate
of our seven-state "neighborhood." Iowa's kids edged ours on the test, which
has a perfect score of 36, but we had significantly more kids taking it, so you
could say our numbers actually look better.
Here are the numbers:
Nebraska, 21.8, 76%
Missouri, 21.6, 70%
Kansas, 21.7, 76%
Colorado, 20.2, 100%
Wyoming, 21.4, 69%
South Dakota, 21.5, 76%
Iowa, 22.0, 66%
Note that Colorado and
Illinois have both mandated that all students take the ACT, not just the
college-bound. That's a great idea, and it's working very well to raise
everybody's sights higher in the Rocky Mountain state. We should think about
doing the same.
As for high schools in
the metro area, wow! Westside made eye-popping progress on its average ACT
score over the last year. They moved from a 23.4 to a 24.2 on the 36-point
scale. That's tremendous. According to The
World-Herald's published chart Wednesday, it looks to be the highest around
the metro area.
Of course, that's not
counting all the Catholic high schools, most of which probably beat Westside,
as they have for years. The last time I saw a straight-up comparison, Prep,
Duchesne and Marian all beat Westside and all other public high schools by a
couple of points. Brownell-Talbot did, too, and I think Concordia, the Lutheran
school, did, too. But now, for various reasons, the archdiocese doesn't let
itself get swept up in the numbers game and participate in this annual chart.
And I don't know what happened to the other private schools.
Anyway, there are two
other things you have to consider in looking at Westside's score:
- The chart should have included the exclusion
rate. How many students enrolled in the graduating class have been labeled
"learning disabled," and were excluded from having their scores count? The
chart indicates that Westside reported 75% of its 2005 seniors took the
test, which is much lower than the 84% at Millard West and four other
public high schools, including Omaha North. I bet the difference is LD
kids. Westside is known to have a higher than normal percentage of LD
kids, and a lot of "ungraded" kids in special ed who might stay in high
school an extra year or two or three – so they would not be included in
the group of "seniors" even though they are the same age. That ratchets up
the academic ability of the overall group in a way that could be
considered mildly deceptive.
- The chart should have included the raw numbers
of students who took the test and the number of students in the 2005
graduating class. So if Westside had 300 kids graduate – I'm just guessing
– but only 200 took the ACT last year, then you can see how many
classmates were actually excluded, and that the participation rate was
closer to 67% than the 75% claimed, which is what I suspect.
But any way you slice
it, Westside's scores look good, at least on paper, and that's progress.
Congratulations are due!
To check out Nebraska's
latest scores compared to the rest of the country, remember the importance of
the participation rate, and see http://www.act.org/news/data/05/states.html
