ACT Newsroom & Blog

ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning Offers Policy Recommendations that Reflect Students’ Views

IOWA CITY, Iowa — As millions of American high school students return to classrooms this fall, their concerns about physical safety, which existed prior to the COVID-19 lockdowns, deserve careful analysis and consideration by school administrators and policy makers.

In a new report by ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning, “What Do Students Say About School Safety,” students say schools need additional mental health resources and want school leaders to better listen to their concerns. According to the report, which surveyed high school students who took the ACT test as part of a national administration in late 2018, students want to be engaged and included in conversations around school safety and decisions that affect them.

Authors of the new report examined students’ responses to open-ended questions from a survey that asked them to document their thoughts, feelings and concerns about school safety.

The analysis found that while 75 percent of students said they felt safe at school:

• Many students said their schools could improve on safety. Students reported safety issues associated with traveling outside between buildings for class, being in buildings that did not have locked doors, a lack of proper emergency plans or drills, or school staff not doing enough about school threats. For example, one student stated, “[W]hen a former student attempted an attack on my school at the end of last year, I did not feel like my school was a safe place or that it was handled well. I believe that situation has been swept under the rug and there are still things that need to be addressed in the aftermath of what happened.”
• Nine percent of respondents said they felt unsafe at school. A student commented that, “[O]ne of the students at my school was caught carrying a gun. I felt unsafe because we don’t have any type of metal detectors at my school to search out students [who might bring a gun to school].”
• Students who reported feeling unsafe also commented on racist and homophobic incidents, and a need for school officials to identify and stop behaviors that they deemed racially insensitive, like wearing confederacy-related clothing.
• The most common student suggestion for increasing feelings of safety in school was to increase mental health resources. The need for more school counselors was referenced by 17 percent of these students. One student wrote, “What happens is that the guidance counselors and school psychologist are a mere reroute to actual therapists, and thus they themselves cannot offer any help to students. If they were trained in basic therapy, they may be able to do more to help students.”
• Sixty-seven percent of respondents indicated they did not want teachers or administrators to be trained to carry guns, while 21 percent said that these individuals should be trained. Further, students of color were more likely to oppose this idea than white students (Hispanic 54 percent vs, white 39 percent vs, Black 66 percent), and females were more likely to oppose this than males (54 percent vs. 35 percent).
  
  

“Students’ voices are a critical input in conversations about school safety,” said Tina Gridiron, vice president of ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning. “School policies disproportionately affect students of color and that can lead to their feeling unsafe at school—and be a barrier to their learning and success. We must ensure that students are heard and included in discussions and decisions about school safety, and that administrators don’t overlook important physical safety and mental health issues that students are facing.”

ACT Policy Recommendations to Improve School Safety

• Federal and state funding should promote the availability and improve the access and quality of school mental health services. Although persons with mental illness are not more likely to commit violence, mental health services were the most frequently requested safety measure. Given that the pandemic may have a negative impact on students’ mental health, students may be returning to school with additional mental health needs above and beyond what was needed in the past. This is concerning because, prior to the pandemic, students responding to an ACT survey had reported that their schools’ mental health services were insufficient making access to high-quality school-based mental health services more important than ever.
• Policymakers should include students’ perspectives when considering which school safety measures to implement. While some students identified additional safety measures that could be taken, others believed there were already too many safety measures implemented and some needed to be discontinued. Such a range suggests that policymakers should gather and use student input to help evaluate particular options to better support a safe learning environment for all students.

The latest report builds on two earlier reports in the series:

• “Creating Safe Schools,” in which 23 percent of respondents reported that concerns about safety negatively affected their ability to learn and 38 percent indicated that providing/increasing mental health services for students who need them would increase feelings of safety; and
• “Supporting the Mental Health Well-Being of High School Students,” which found students who attended schools in rural areas had less access to basic school-based mental health services compared to students in suburban or urban locations (71 percent of suburban students, compared to 65 percent of rural students, can access a school-based professional to talk about certain mental health issues). Additionally, African American students were less likely than white students to say that they could reach out to a teacher or counselor if they needed mental health support (for example, 48 percent of African American students compared to 57 percent of white students said they could reach out to a teacher).

About ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning

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. http://equityinlearning.act.org

Equity and Opportunity Gaps Persist as National Average Composite ACT Score Trends Down for Third Year in a Row

IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT, the nonprofit organization that administers the ACT college readiness exam, today released achievement data from the 2020 U.S. high school graduating class of ACT test-takers. Of the nearly 1.67 million students in the 2020 graduating class who took the ACT test, approximately 49 percent of graduates nationwide, the national average Composite score was 20.6, one tenth of a point lower than the 2019 national average of 20.7.

This is the lowest average Composite score in the past 10 years. The average Composite score for students from traditionally underserved racial/ethnic groups (i.e., not white or Asian) decreased from 18.0 to 17.7 between 2016 and 2020.

ACT’s empirical indicators of readiness, the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, provide actionable information to students and educators to improve learning. Only 26 percent of ACT-tested students met all four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks (English, reading, math and science); and consistent with last year, 37 percent met at least three out of the four benchmarks. Just over half of underserved students (low-income, minority, and/or first-generation college students) met zero of the four benchmarks.
  

“By our measures, more than half of underserved students aren’t college ready,” said ACT CEO Janet Godwin. “That’s unacceptable, and we must do better. COVID-19 will only exacerbate these gaps and more students will miss out on opportunities to find success. I am hopeful though, that even with the disruption of 2020, ACT data will continue to serve as a consistent evaluation tool crucial to assessing learning gaps, identifying systemic barriers in education and most importantly highlighting opportunities for growth. Together with educators we will work tirelessly to improve student outcomes.”

ACT research has consistently shown that students who report taking the recommended core curriculum—four years of English, three years of mathematics (including courses in Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II), three years of science (including courses in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) and three years of social studies—are more likely to be ready for college or career than those who do not. Access to quality courses as part of a rigorous curriculum may be limited for certain groups—like students from rural areas and low-income students—compared to their more privileged peers.

Overall, the percentage of students self-reporting their curriculum and other information has declined over the past few years. Among students who provided coursework information to ACT, 75 percent completed the core curriculum and achieved an average score of 22.3, while 25 percent took less than the core curriculum and achieved an average score of 19.2. The average Composite score among 2020 graduates who did not provide coursework information is 17.9, which is 0.1 points lower than the 2019 average for this group of students.

“Our states and districts continue to lead the way in providing opportunities for access for all students, particularly underserved students,” said ACT President of Measurement, Charlie Astorino. “As more students take the ACT during the school day, particularly with COVID-19 limiting access to school buildings on national test dates, educators and school officials will look to ACT data for reliable insights to holistically assess and improve learning outcomes for students and school systems.”

In conjunction with the release of ACT achievement data on the class of 2020 graduates, ACT is also releasing a policy brief and corresponding webinar. These activities highlight a diverse group of high schools that have shared their insights regarding a number of interventions to address and remedy barriers to postsecondary success for their students.

While COVID-19 affected students and education systems in many ways in the spring of 2020, the data do not suggest that ACT scores for the 2020 graduating class were affected in a substantive way by the safety measures and responses to COVID-19. It is too early to determine the ways in which COVID-19 may affect the testing rates and average scores of future graduating classes.

Other Findings

• In the 2019-2020 school year, ACT continued to provide ACT fee waivers for students from low-income families to take the ACT for free. Students used ACT fee waivers to register for almost 400,000 free ACT tests, with more than $20.5 million in registration fees waived.
• Among 2020 graduates who retested, receiving more exposure to instruction, the average ACT Composite score was 22.8 (22.7 in 2019), while the national average Composite score for single-time testers among 2020 graduates was 19.0 (19.2 in 2019).
• The annual reporting of ACT achievement data on the high school graduating class looks at a student’s most recent test attempt. The percentage of high school graduates whose last test was taken as a junior has been increasing since 2016, with 58 percent of 2020 graduates taking their last test as a junior.
• Among ACT-tested 2020 graduates, 24 percent did not complete any of the course grade information section of the ACT registration form, which is used to determine core/non-core curriculum status.
• 44% of the ACT-tested graduating class had a state or district test as their most recent record, meaning that they had the ability to receive a college-reportable ACT score while testing in their own school buildings on a weekday.

As ACT becomes a learning organization, it’s increasingly important for the nonprofit to not only measure readiness, but also provide research-backed learning solutions and share success stories from educators improving learning in their classrooms.

Join ACT for a webinar on November 12, 2020 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. central featuring promising practices from exemplary high schools that are helping their students find success while serving predominately high populations of minority/underserved students in rural, urban and suburban areas. Learn what these schools are doing to help students outperform expectations compared to their peers.

About the Data

The data released include ACT score results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including 14 states that required all students to take the ACT as part of their statewide testing programs and another six states that funded ACT testing on an optional basis. They also include the results from more than 1,100 individual school districts across the country that administered the ACT to all students.

Note: There will be no Condition of College and Career Readiness national report or corresponding state reports in 2020. The data remain largely unchanged year-over-year and can now be accessed in an interactive format. State profile reports are available upon request.

View the data via the public-facing Tableau dashboard.

Additionally, ACT will continue to release focused reports, including a series of briefs on ACT fee waiver usage, throughout the year in order to give these important topics the full attention they deserve.

About ACT

ACT is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. Headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa, ACT is trusted as a national leader in college and career readiness, providing high-quality assessments grounded in over 60 years of research. ACT offers a uniquely integrated set of solutions designed to provide personalized insights that help individuals succeed from elementary school through career.