Students’ ACT scores released

It’s something that has bothered Charles Clock since he was a boy: the importance educators and media attribute to standardized tests. He struggled with the tests as a student and devoted his life after retiring from school administration to helping students learn the tricks needed to do well on them.

So when the testing expert is asked to comment on local students’ performance on national tests such as the ACT, which released scores for the class of 2007 last week, he has a long list of things to keep in mind. First and foremost: don’t look at the scores as the tell-all of a student’s academic ability, he said.

“The best it can do is measure a very small spectrum of skills,” said Clock, a Post Falls resident.

But while local educators and a spokesman for the national ACT test agree a student’s academic ability can’t be summed up in a test score, they say ACT results can give a good snapshot of a student’s knowledge and a school’s overall academic performance. The ACT college-entrance exam is widely used in high schools in the Midwest and South, while the SAT is preferred on the coasts.

“It measures what students have learned in schools,” said Ed Colby, spokesman for the ACT, emphasizing that the test is based on results of a national curriculum survey and takes input from high school and college-level educators about what it should measure and how.

The average overall score, or a composite score, on the ACT in Idaho this year was 21.4. Nationally it was 21.2. Local schools beat both the state and national averages. Lake City and Coeur d’Alene posted an average composite score of 22.7, Post Falls scored 21.9, and Timberlake and Lakeland high schools posted a combined score of 21.5. The highest possible score is 36.

Lake City’s composite score is down from 23.1 in 2006. Clock said it’s important to remember that an individual score on the test can have a measurement error of two points. Trumpeting an increase in average scores or lamenting a slight drop ignores that margin or error, he said.

But Colby said the average score for a group has a measurement error of just one-tenth of a point. The most valuable way to gauge a student or a school’s academic performance from an ACT score is to look at the scores over several years, he said.

Comparing test scores of different classes is like “comparing apples and meatballs,” Clock said. “They’re different kids.”

One of Clock’s biggest beefs is when scores of large and small schools are compared. Students at the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy trounced Lake City and Coeur d’Alene high schools’ average composite score by more than five full points – 27.8 to 22.7. But just 16 charter students took the exam, compared with 97 at Coeur d’Alene and 83 at Lake City, making such a comparison between data sets “ludicrous,” Clock said.

The ACT differs from the SAT by covering more areas. The new SAT has math, verbal and writing sections. The ACT covers reading, math, language and scientific reasoning. College-bound seniors take the SAT or ACT, depending on which schools they’re looking to get into. Some colleges prefer a certain test. And a high test score can never hurt a student’s admission chances at any school.

The best time to take college-preparation tests is in the junior year, said Warren Olson, vice principal at Coeur d’Alene High, because it gives students at least a year to hone their skills before leaving high school. Junior-year tests like the PSAT and Plan, the preludes to the SAT and ACT respectively, provide results that include an answer sheet that indicates the difficulty of the question, Olson said. Senior-year tests like the ACT are a way for students to further establish their merits, he said.

“The test scores become a way to get a leg up, and it qualifies you for scholarships,” Olson said.

Some colleges use the scores as part of an admissions formula. Others base scholarships on it, and some states – like Idaho – hinge their student scholarships on the results of the ACT.

The number of local students taking the tests has increased each year. Under new state graduation requirements, juniors will be required to take a college entrance exam. They’ll likely take the PSAT or the Plan, which could lead to more students feeling ready for the ACT or SAT their senior year, Olson said.

“The senior year’s too late to start planning and preparing yourself for the test,” he said.