Illinois High School Juniors Not Ready For College

By Soyoung Kwak in News on Nov 13, 2010 5:30PM

Thinking about standardized testing can really make some people sweat, and it looks like it's making a lot of teachers, parents, and students sweat right now: an analysis of ACT scores has indicated that approximately 80 percent of public high school juniors in Illinois are not ready for college studies. The Chicago Tribune recently looked through around 133,000 tests that juniors in Illinois high schools were required to take in April 2010. Upon searching through the numerous test scores (which the paper obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request), the Tribune determined that too many high school juniors were not meeting the set "benchmarks" for each of the subjects that were tested.

Structurally, the ACT is different than the SAT in two different ways. The ACT tests in four different subject areas (math, English, science, and reading with an optional writing section) and is graded on a scale from 1-36, 36 being the highest possible score. The "college readiness" benchmarks for the ACT are set as 22 in math, 18 for English, 24 in science, and 21 in reading. The Tribune found that only 19.3 percent of the test-takers in April met the benchmarks in all of the subjects. Additionally, 35 percent of the students didn't meet the benchmarks at all:

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.

The Tribune also found that even students at "affluent suburban Chicago schools" failed to meet the set benchmarks, hinting that the problem of low test scores and college readiness affects all students from varying backgrounds.