High schoolers in Maryland and Virginia scored five-year highs on the 2008 ACT entrance exam even as more of them opted to take the test, according to results released Wednesday morning.
Despite rising scores, however, fewer than a third of the test takers met college readiness benchmarks set by the Iowa-based organization. In Maryland, 29 percent earned scores predictive of a C average or better in college classes. In Virginia, 26 percent of students did the same.
The numbers are made more troubling by the fact that more than 70 percent of the states’ students who took the ACT registered as having taken a core curriculum in high school, judged as four years of English and three each of math, science and social studies.
“These percentages suggest that too many of our high school core courses lack the rigor they need to prepare students for college-entry courses,” said Richard Ferguson, ACT’s chief executive officer and board chairman.
Even so, the popularity of the four-part exam testing English, reading, math and science, with an optional writing section, has soared in recent years.
Districts nearer the East Coast have been slower to adopt it, however, and here it remains significantly less common than the SAT entrance exam.
In Montgomery County, the number of students taking the ACT climbed to 2,355 in 2008, up from 1,735 in 2007.
“People are voting with their feet about how well they like the SAT anymore,” said Montgomery Superintendent Jerry Weast at a recent school board meeting, adding that more than 10 percent of eligible students chose to take the ACT in 2008.
Board member Pat O’Neill hopes Maryland will consider joining several states administering the test to all juniors, in lieu of recently implemented tests required for graduation.
“I don’t buy that exit exams are a high-level test,” O’Neill said. “The ACT measures kids’ readiness for college or work. [Maryland’s graduation exams] are meant for the ninth and tenth grade level.”
