DPI releases ACT, Badger test scores
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
For the first time, every high school junior in the state was required to take the ACT test in the 2014-15 school year.
According to a press release from the state Department of Public Instruction, last spring, 65,065 public high school juniors had the opportunity to take either the ACT Plus Writing or Dynamic Learning Maps, an alternate assessment that measures the academic progress of students with significant cognitive disabilities.
Results from the DPI show 45.7 percent of students were proficient or advanced in English language arts and 35.9 percent achieved at those performance levels in mathematics.
In East Troy, the 11th graders performed higher than the state average, Director of Special Education and District Assessment Coordinator Kate Harder said.
“The percent that were proficient or advanced total for ELA was 53.9 percent and for math was 45.9 percent,” she said.
Because this was the first year for every junior to take the test, Harder cautioned against making comparisons with ACT scores from previous years.
“Being that the test was an elective before, it’s hard to say exactly what the new numbers mean,” Harder said.
She went on to say the district doesn’t rely on a single test to measure student achievement.
“Most of our students are meeting their growth targets, and that’s what we look for,” she said. “Our cohorts are doing above the national norms.
The cohort, or grade-level, groups are followed throughout their school careers in the district from grade school through graduation, with progress mapped as a whole and for each individual student.
“The piece we always look at are how they’re doing and if they’re growing,” Harder said.
The ACT is scored on a scale of one to 36 and consists of five subject area tests – English, reading, writing, mathematics, and science. The 2014-15 statewide composite score for public school juniors who took the ACT was 20.0, according to the DPI. East Troy’s composite score for 2014-15 was 20.4.
In the past, ACT results have been released annually for public and private school graduates who took the test during their high school career, the DPI press release stated. For the 2015 graduating class, 46,738 students or about 73 percent of all graduating seniors, took the ACT and had a composite score of 22.2. In East Troy it was 23.1
The composite scoring on the ACT is: English language arts, 1 to 14 is “Below Basic;” 15 to 19 is “Basic;” 20 to 27 is “Proficient;” and 28-36 is “Advanced.” In math, the composites scoring is 1 to 16 is “Below Basic;” 17 to 21 is “Basic;” 22 to 27 is “Proficient;” and 28-36 is “Advanced.”
According to the DPI, more than half of the students in the state tested for a basic or less than basic understanding of the English language arts and nearly two-thirds of the states students tested for a basic or less than basic understanding of math.
The differences in the number of students, the multiple times graduates may have taken the ACT, and the fact that many graduates take the test during their final year of high school make comparisons between statewide and graduating class ACT results invalid and flawed.
Administration of statewide exams in the ACT suite for the 2015-16 school year begins in March.
Badger Exam scores
The Badger Exam test scores also cannot be compared to last year, because 2014-15 was the first and last year the kids will take the test. It was used last year in place of the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination while the Forward Exam was under construction.
The Forward Exam will be given to grade-school students this spring.
Across the state on the Badger Exam, or the Wisconsin Student Assessment System, results for public school students in grades three through eight showed 51.2 percent were proficient or advanced in English language arts and 43.7 percent scored at the proficient or advanced levels in mathematics for the 2014-15 statewide exams.
For the most part, grade-schoolers in East Troy scored above the state average. There were a couple of drops below the state average for ELA and math in the third grade and math in grades six and seven.
But, again, Harder said what the district looks at is continued growth over time and the other assessments the district uses to measure that growth. “This is just one test,” she said.
