ACT Newsroom & Blog

Math class is known for many things, but “favorite school subject” would likely not be one of them. And if there is merit in the relationship between things we like, and the things we do well, then it should come as no surprise that math performance results remain sluggish across the US, and indeed worldwide. ACT’s own Condition report on the 2018 US high school graduates shows math scores declining over the past several years.

So what are we to do, if anything, to get math results onto the podium of contenders for “favorite school subject?”

When in doubt, look to brain research for inspiration. Taking into account that this post is by no means a meta-analysis of brain research as it relates to learning, a simple core principle is that we’ve got to want to learn (math) in order to actually learn (math).

Put simply, and speaking as both teacher and parent, if there is one thing I know, it’s that my students/kids don’t learn (or even listen for that matter), when they don’t want to. And no matter how hard I might try, without their willingness to want to learn, learning just isn’t going to happen in any meaningful way.

That said, it would seem that a fundamental precursor to improving math learning and—as a consequence—math test results, is for our students to want to learn math. Sounds simple—problem solved!

The good news in this line of thinking is that it doesn’t require any outside changes beyond my (or your) sphere of influence. In short, if the keystone variable is “want to learn” then we can stop worrying about curriculum or policy changes that are way out of our control as teachers, and students. What’s more, as teachers, creating the conditions for “wanting to learn” is arguably a more tangible task than deciphering the alchemy of knowledge and skills acquisition.

The even better news: we all know teachers and, dare I say, technologies that can help.

Let’s start with teachers—great teachers. Master teachers. And even though it might not be possible to achieve the same level of ease and grace in the classroom, there are conditions for learning created by Master Teachers that are readily replicated and can translate into any classroom setting.

For example, love of the subject and passion for learning. If there is one surefire way to get people interested in something and inspire a desire to learn, it’s passion and belief in the value of your subject. Consider, for example, the exploration of the Golden Ratio by Ben Sparks. No matter your level of knowledge or interest in this particular topic or math, the joy in the exposition of the subject by Ben is contagious, inspiring beginnings of “wanting to learn” as we try to understand what it is that is so special about the Golden Ratio and why Ben likes it so much!

Given the choice of Master Teacher or technology, I know which one I would choose. But just the same, consider technology: the great leveler and master of none.

Technologies, particularly free and open technologies—and their communities—have opened up learning beyond the limitations of single teachers standing in a room of students. Suddenly, love of the subject, indeed the beauty to be found in any subject, is easily translatable and transmittable outside the classroom and beyond. ACT Academy, for example, serves as a repository of learning and test preparation materials under conditions which provide for individualized learning needs, level and pace. Parents who might consider their own subject knowledge truncated can, without difficulty, access tools and resources to share and inspire their children. Students can explore math through a novel and self-directed medium, without limitation.

What’s more, the opportunity to explore math in new and meaningful ways has never been greater with technologies like augmented and mixed reality from GeoGebra. With these tools, instead of just imagining the function of an object to study, a real object—a football for example, or classic mathematical construction such as a pyramid—could be created and explored in virtual form, allowing one to walk around it, through it, or make enormous or small enough to fit in one’s hand.

In my own utopic view of math class, I see a student readying her/himself for school over breakfast, phone in hand, and in response to a (justifiable) parental retort to “put down your phone at the breakfast table” the student turns and passes the phone to the parent only to reveal a perfectly shaped bright shiny blue vase, a.k.a. z = x² + y², hovering just off the surface of the table, created by the student in preparation for math class. Suddenly, for both parent and child, math class just went to #1.
Join us for a Twitter chat to continue the conversation on math readiness

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ACT announced today a new initiative to combat food insecurity and improve student ACT test outcomes by launching a pilot program that provides a free breakfast to students at five ACT test centers in Virginia.

Students taking the ACT in Eastville, Harrisonburg, Martinsville, Springfield and Tazewell, Virginia on the ACT national test date this Saturday, Oct. 27, will be offered a free healthy breakfast before the test.

ACT and Virginia’s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), a federally funded program administered by the Virginia Department of Education’s Office of School Nutrition Program, are partnering to pilot this initiative, drawing on research demonstrating that students who are hungry—particularly those who have missed breakfast—have poorer cognitive performance, especially when testing.

ACT research indicates that there is a positive relationship between having breakfast and subsequent ACT test performance. Students who took the ACT twice and reported having breakfast before both the first and second tests experienced larger average ACT composite score gains (1.1 points) than students who reported not having breakfast on either occasion (0.7 point).

The pilot breakfast program is the first step in a planned long-term initiative to help the country’s most underserved students access a nutritional breakfast before taking the ACT exam..

“This pilot is a perfect fit with our longstanding mission to help people achieve education and workplace success, and we are thrilled to be able to help turn this idea into reality,” said Scott Montgomery, ACT senior vice president of state and federal programs. “We hope to expand the program next year.”

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In order to “Unmask the Potential” for students, educators, and workers, they must first be informed. Information is power, and once it is obtained, it can be utilized to help a person or organization reach their full potential. This year’s ACT Workforce Summit centered on this theme—unmasking one’s potential—and I was proud to lead a meaningful discussion of industry professionals in retail, restaurant, and hospitality around how credential information will help their sector reach its full potential.

Why credential data? For starters, navigating today’s complex education marketplace is difficult for students, workers, and employers alike. Confusion, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities abound. What’s more, the marketplace is growing in size; Credential Engine has counted over 334,000 unique credentials in the U.S., and estimates that the number is well over 500,000. Employer needs in the 21st century are also shifting rapidly, creating challenges not only for businesses looking for talent but also for educators trying to keep pace.

How do we make sense of this vast marketplace? Credential Engine uses the power of technology and data. Just as the development of data standards have revolutionized the travel industry—allowing for the development of applications like Expedia and TripAdvisor to quickly compare costs, locations, amenities, customer ratings, and other key data points—Credential Engine’s tools and services will enable the credential marketplace to leap into the 21st century where states, educators, employers, and students can easily discover and understand comprehensive credential information.

In pursuit of this goal, Credential Engine and its partners developed a common language (the Credential Transparency Description Language, or CTDL), the Credential Registry to hold credential data, and an open applications marketplace. We've come a long way since our presentation at last year's 2017 ACT Workforce Summit, when we were officially launching these tools. A year later, we have more than 4,770 unique credentials in the Registry, over 300 terms in the CTDL that can be used to describe credential data, a variety of new publishing tools, working in partnership with nine states, and have launched our first sector-specific initiative in the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sectors.

This sector initiative was highlighted at the ACT Workforce Summit. Our panel brought together the National Retail Federation, the National Restaurant Association, and Delaware North to shine a light on the role that credentials play—from badges to certifications to degrees—in meeting employer needs and advancing workers in the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sector. Our panelists shared how sector leaders are working to ensure they have access to comparable, transparent data about credentials, competencies, and their labor market value.

Our panelists are all involved in Credential Engine’s national Retail and Hospitality Credentials Initiative (RHCI), which works with industry associations, employers, and credential issuers to identify, capture, and publish industry-recognized retail and hospitality credentials. These sectors have an outsized impact on the US labor market, with six in 10 Americans having worked in retail at some point, 14.7 million employees in the restaurant industry, and the 8 million hotel operations and guest spending support jobs in the hospitality industry.

The discussion I led revealed a number of interesting lessons and insights from our panelists including:

• The current credential marketplace for the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sectors leaves stakeholders on all sides confused and frustrated about what credentials are available, what it takes to earn them, and which ones are recognized by employers. 

• Employers like Delaware North use industry certifications to recruit, hire, and advance their employees. 

• Workers in these sectors need greater clarity on what career pathways are available and which credentials can help them reach their goals. 

• Employers, workers, and workforce development professionals need user-friendly tools to demystify the benefits and distinctions of different credential types. 

About Credential Engine

We look forward to sharing the work in this sector, and across the portfolio of Credential Engine as our work continues to grow and we bring increased clarity to businesses, classrooms, homes, and most importantly, to you.


Credential Engine is a non-profit whose mission is to create credential transparency, reveal the credential marketplace, increase credential literacy, and empower everyone to make more informed decisions about credentials and their value. Credential Engine is supported by Lumina Foundation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Walmart Giving, Northrop Grumman Foundation, and Microsoft.

STEM’s future not adding up well for America

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Readiness in math is trending downward among ACT-tested US high school graduates, falling to its lowest mark in 14 years, according to The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2018, ACT’s annual score report. The report, released today, is based on 2018 graduates around the country who took the ACT® test.

The percentage of ACT-tested graduates who met or surpassed the ACT College Readiness Benchmark in math—suggesting they are ready to succeed in a first-year college algebra class—fell to its lowest level since 2004; 40% of 2018 graduates met the math benchmark, down from a high of 46% in 2012.

In addition, students’ average score on the ACT math test dropped to its lowest level in more than 20 years—down to 20.5 (on a scale of 1 to 36), continuing a slide from 21.1 in 2012 to 20.7 last year.

Student readiness in math was on an upswing from the early 2000s to 2012, but it has gradually declined since then.

“The negative trend in math readiness is a red flag for our country, given the growing importance of math and science skills in the increasingly tech-driven US and global job market,” said ACT CEO Marten Roorda. “It is vital that we turn this trend around for the next generation and make sure students are learning the math skills they need for success in college and career.”

The results are based on the more than 1.9 million 2018 graduates—55 percent of the national graduating class—who took the ACT® test.

English Readiness Also Dropping

Readiness in English has also been trending down over the past several years, dropping from 64% in 2015 to 60% this year, the lowest level since the benchmarks were introduced.

Readiness levels in reading (46%) and science (36%) were both down one percentage point from last year but are showing no long-term trends either upward or downward. Science remains the subject area in which students are least likely to be prepared for college coursework.

More Students at Bottom of Readiness Scale

A growing percentage of students are falling at the bottom of the preparedness scale. Thirty-five percent of 2018 graduates met none of the four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, up from 31% in 2014 and from 33% last year. These students are likely to struggle in first-year college coursework in all four core subject areas.

In addition, slightly fewer ACT-tested graduates were well prepared for college coursework overall this year than last year. Thirty-eight percent of 2018 graduates met at least three of the four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks in the core subject areas, down from 39% in 2017 but the same as in 2016.

“Innovation is important in improving educational outcomes,” said Roorda. “One big step we can take is to make sure that our learning resources are designed in a way that is more personalized and better fits this generation’s way of consuming information. ACT is committing significant research and resources to this effort.”

Average ACT Composite Score Drops Back Down

The national average ACT composite score for the 2018 graduating class was 20.8, down from 21.0 last year but the same as in 2016.

Hispanic, African American Students Lag Behind

Hispanic and African American students continue to lag behind their white and Asian American counterparts in terms of college readiness. Asian Americans remain the best prepared group as a whole; their average composite score rose this year compared to last year, while scores for students in all other racial/ethnic groups went down slightly.

Underserved Learners Struggle

College readiness levels remain markedly low overall for underserved learners (low-income, minority, and/or first generation college students—who make up 43% of all ACT-tested graduates). Once again, fewer than a fourth of underserved graduates were well prepared for college coursework overall compared to slightly more than half of students who were not considered underserved.

“Underserved students often face obstacles that their peers do not,” said Roorda. “We must work hard to ensure they have equal access to a quality education, including challenging courses that focus on college-ready skills and planning resources to help them create a pathway to success. ACT is focused on improving equity through our Center for Equity in Learning and other efforts.”

During the 2017-2018 academic year, ACT awarded more than 500,000 fee waivers to low-income high school students across the nation, allowing them to take the ACT for free. Unfortunately, 28% of these fee waivers were not used, suggesting that over 150,000 eligible students missed out on an opportunity to take the ACT for free during the past year alone.

STEM Readiness Down Slightly

Twenty percent of graduates met or surpassed the ACT STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Benchmark, which represents readiness for first-year courses typically required for a STEM major. The average national STEM score—a combination of the ACT math and science scores—was 20.9 in 2018, down from 21.1 in 2017.

College Aspirations High, but Often Not Realized

Student aspirations are high. Around three-fourths (76%) of 2018 ACT-tested graduates said they aspire to postsecondary education. Most of those students said they aspire to a four-year degree or higher.

A significant portion of students who hope to attend college, however, don’t actually enroll. While 82% of last year’s 2017 ACT-tested graduates said they aspired to attend college, only 66% actually ended up enrolling. If this “aspirations gap” were fully closed, an additional 322,526 of last year’s ACT-tested graduates would have enrolled in postsecondary education.

Once again this year, only 4 percent of ACT-tested graduates indicated they plan to pursue a career in education. These numbers point to no relief in sight for the US teacher shortage, which is projected to grow to over 100,000 educators by 2021.

Work/Career Readiness Remains Modest

Just around a fourth (26%) of ACT-tested 2018 graduates likely have the foundational work readiness skills needed for more than nine out of 10 jobs recently profiled in ACT’s JobPro database. Based on their ACT scores, those students would likely earn a Gold ACT® WorkKeys® National Career Readiness Certificate® (NCRC®). Another 47% of 2018 graduates would likely earn a silver-level NCRC.

Diversity Remains Unchanged

ACT test takers represent a diverse group of students. Slightly more than half (52%) of ACT-tested 2018 graduates identified themselves as white. The next largest group was Hispanic/Latino students (16%), followed by Black/African American students (13%). The distribution of examinees by race/ethnicity changed little between 2017 and 2018.

Recommendations

ACT’s report provides specific recommendations to help meet its goal for all young people to have access to a high-quality, holistic education that will get them on target for college and career readiness by the time they graduate from high school:

• Give educators the resources they need to help improve educational outcomes.
• Assess student learning and implement improvement strategies starting early in students’ educational careers.
• Provide equitable resources for underserved students.
• Ensure that students’ education is holistic and addresses the needs of the “whole learner.”
• Collect, handle, and use assessment data responsibly, with special attention to maintaining its security and quality.

About the Report

The report includes ACT score results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including 16 states that required all students to take the ACT as part of their statewide testing programs and another three states that funded ACT testing on an optional basis. It also includes the results from more than 1,100 individual school districts across the country that administered the ACT to all students.

NOTE: National and state ACT Condition of College & Career Readiness 2018 reports are available on the ACT website at: www.act.org/condition2018

For district- or school-specific score results, please contact the local district/district office or your state department of education. ACT releases only national and state reports.

About the ACT Test

The ACT is a curriculum-based achievement test that measures the skills taught in schools and deemed important for success in first-year college courses. The content of the ACT is informed by results of the ACT National Curriculum Survey®, conducted every three to four years among thousands of elementary, middle and high school teachers and instructors of first-year college courses across the United States. The data obtained in the survey allow ACT to ensure that its assessments measure the skills most important for success after high school.

ACT research shows that students who meet the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks are more likely to persist in college and earn a degree than those who don’t. The benchmarks specify the minimum score students must earn on each of the four ACT subject tests to have about a 75 percent chance of earning a grade of C or higher and a 50 percent chance of earning a B or higher in a typical credit-bearing first-year college course in that subject area.

ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning focuses on closing gaps in equity, opportunity and achievement for underserved populations and working learners. Through purposeful investments, employee engagement, and thoughtful advocacy efforts, the Center supports innovative partnerships, actionable research, initiatives, campaigns, and programs to further ACT’s mission of helping people achieve education and workplace success.

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“Instead of a shark tank, imagine you’re swimming with dolphins,” said an organizer of NYU’s Algorithms for Change competition in an attempt to calm our nerves as we headed into the final pitch-off. It wasn’t a real shark tank, of course; the organizer was referring to the popular TV show Shark Tank, where aspiring entrepreneurs make business presentations to a panel of "shark" investors.

A slick presentation and a rapid fire Q&A later, Amanda Newlin, my Smart Sparrow team partner, and I stood on the main stage, waiting breathlessly to hear the judges’ decision. When it was announced, we learned we had won the half million dollar prize!

But what made this win truly special was the opportunity to fulfill our project goal: using artificial intelligence (AI) for social good. More specifically, we are going to develop an AI-based solution to help low-income, minority, and first-generation college students get to and through college.

Underserved students lag far behind their peers when it comes to college and career readiness, and this is especially true for STEM learning and preparedness.

In 2017, ACT’s Condition of College & Career Readiness report revealed just 2% of students coming from low-income, minority and first-generation backgrounds met the ACT College Readiness Benchmark in STEM. Compare that with 32% of the students with none of those underserved population markers who met the ACT STEM benchmark.

That is an astounding gap.

Students are entering higher education without meeting the basic prerequisites needed to succeed. Smart Sparrow and ACTNext, ACT’s innovation arm, have partnered to address this challenge.

Funded by the Algorithms for Change award, we are building “Foundations of Science.” This is a suite of learning experiences that use AI and machine learning approaches to identify student knowledge and skill gaps, predict achievement, and deliver learner interventions to at-risk students within the first few weeks of their science courses.

Learner interventions may include actions such as introducing remedial lessons, resequencing content, and/or alerting an instructor. Moreover, our approach includes student engagement reports and instructor insights that will enable instructors to adapt their teaching to their students. Such innovations, when presented within a seamless course environment, will help increase student course grades, engagement and persistence — and the students who stand to benefit most from this are underserved students.

I believe there is a need for more tech in social good and more social good in tech.

While the practice of addressing social challenges with AI is relatively nascent, it’s exciting to envision how innovation could amplify the impact of social good programs. ACT and Smart Sparrow’s partnership to build AI-based solutions to improve learning outcomes for underserved students is a leading example.

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The following press release was reprinted with permission from Virginia's Office of the Governor. The original release can be found here.

RICHMOND—Governor Ralph Northam today announced that the Commonwealth will participate in a pilot program that provides a complimentary breakfast to students at five of Virginia’s ACT test centers. On Saturday, October 27, students taking the ACT in Gretna, Harrisonburg, Martinsville, Springfield, and Tazewell will be offered a healthy breakfast before the test.

“The benefits of eating a healthy breakfast before testing are substantial and well-documented,” said Governor Northam. “Virginia is dedicated to equipping our children with all of the tools they need to be successful, and that includes expanding access to nutritious meals. We are proud to be part of this important initiative.”

Virginia’s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and ACT, Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Iowa City, Iowa that administers the ACT assessment, will partner to pilot this initiative, drawing on research demonstrating that students who are hungry—particularly those who have missed breakfast—have poorer cognitive performance, especially when testing.

“This initiative is a great example Virginia’s commitment to the success of our students in all aspects of their education,” said Secretary of Education Atif Qarni. “A small thing like breakfast can make a big difference for students and their performance.”

“We want to offer our students every advantage to perform as best they can on the test, and offering a free breakfast before sitting for the test seemed like an ideal way to do it,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. James Lane.

“It’s a perfect fit with our longstanding mission to help people achieve education and workplace success, and we are thrilled to be able help make this idea a reality,” said ACT Senior Vice President Scott Montgomery.

CACFP is a federally funded program administered by the Virginia Department of Education’s Office of School Nutrition Programs. Many Virginia school divisions are eligible to participate in CACFP—for information, please contact Sandy Curwood at (804) 225-2074 or Sandra.Curwood@doe.virginia.gov.

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ACT’s assessments have always been built from the ground up, based on what educators have determined students need to learn—and on what they are actually being taught. Social and emotional learning (SEL) is no different. As educators have been insisting for decades, success depends on more than just core academic knowledge.

ACT recognizes this need to consider the “whole student.” SEL emphasizes aspects such as responsibility and diligence; self-management and composure; and social skills, or getting along with others. These skills are necessary prerequisites for individuals to succeed in the global community of today’s world, as well as local communities, with distinct customs and mores.

Unlike other SEL assessments, the ACT approach does not solely rely on self-reporting, which can enable examinees to game the system—providing responses that may be inaccurate, but are perceived as the socially desirable response. Our system, based on research in innovative assessment methodology over the past two decades, uses techniques such as scenario-based situational judgement tests and forced-choice items.
This initiative to view student behavior in conjunction with their knowledge is not isolated to the US. We have conducted SEL studies in New Zealand and Chile, and our Global Assessment Certificate curriculum includes modules and training on collaboration, conscientiousness, and honesty.

In 2018, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched the Study on Social and Emotional Skills to place greater emphasis on the development of these skills in schools and other settings.

We may use different terms: SEL, non-cognitive skills, teamwork, moral, grit, tenacity, but we mean the same thing: How can we develop within students the social and emotional competencies required for success in their global communities?

ACT was recently awarded the opportunity to develop an assessment tailored to the Crown Prince Court Moral Education Program implemented in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The curriculum, developed by the CPC, seeks to embed social and emotional learning—along with academic content on national history, culture, and civics—into curriculum that educates every student for greater success in the workforce and as engaged citizens.

ACT is working to develop the Moral Education Standardized Assessment, which will measure if students are demonstrating the knowledge and behaviors taught by the Moral Education Program. As with any well-crafted assessment, we design with the end in mind: what are the desired learning outcomes and objectives of the curriculum? For some skills, this may be evaluated by a particular behavior, like tolerance of another’s differences; for others it may be demonstrated by their knowledge (e.g. learning government procedures).

Although program details vary from one educational entity to the next, in the end, the goal remains the same. What’s fast-developing is a genuinely transformative new mindset and educational design: a holistic one that recognizes that our students must attain academic knowledge and social and emotional competencies to succeed and thrive.

We are committed to preparing students for success in today’s society, with help from our partners across the globe.

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