CHS students show improvement on ACT test

The number of Carson High students who met all four benchmarks on the ACT test college prepatory test improved by 1.5 percent over the last year.

All high school juniors in the state take the ACT test. In 2018, 11.8 percent of CHS students taking the test met all four benchmarks in English, reading, math and science. That was an improvement over 10.3 percent who met all four benchmarks in 2017.

The state average for students meeting all four benchmarks on the test improved from 10 percent in 2017 to 11 percent in 2018.

Carson’s average score on the ACT test was also well above the state average. The state average improved from 17.4 to 17.5 percent.

Carson’s score ticked up just a bit to 18.03 in 2018 from 18.01 in 2017.

In each subject, 37.9 percent of CHS students met the benchmark in English, 22.6 percent in math, 21.7 percent in reading and 19.7 percent in science.

It should be noted all juniors take the ACT, not just students considered to be college prep students. There has been the idea floated instead of requiring all juniors to take the ACT, there would also be an option for students who are more on a career and technical education (CTE) path and who aren’t considered college bound students to take the WorkKeys exam.

“It has been discussed,” Carson City Schools superintendent Richard Stokes said. “I hope sometime in he future that will happen.”

Stokes said when the district extrapolates the results from the ACT test using WorkKeys standards, 91 percent of the students who take the ACT earn a National Career Readiness Certificate either at the gold, silver or bronze level.

Based on the WorkKeys standards, gold students are ready for 93 percent of the jobs in their database, silver students are ready for 67 percent and bronze are ready for 16 percent.

Stokes also noted many seniors in the district choose to take the ACT again in order to improve their score.

“In past years with the college-bound, typically the seniors there is an increase,” said Stokes about college-bound seniors doing better on the ACT test.

Stokes said the district is also focused on making sure students are taking “as rigorous course work as they possibly can” to meet the requirements of the ACT test.

The ACT benchmark is 18 for English, 22 for math, 22 for reading and 23 for science. Students who reach those benchmarks are considered to be college-ready in those areas.

Douglas High had excellent results as compared to the rest of the state with 20.7 percent of its students reaching the benchmark in all four areas, a marked improvement over 13.9 percent from 2017.

On the test, 48.7 percent of students reach the benchmark in English, 36 percent in math, 36.7 percent in reading and 28.7 percent in science.

The average ACT score at Douglas improved to 19.66 in 2018 from 18.91 in 2017.

Highlights from Nevada’s 2018 ACT results include:

The composite score for American Indian/Alaska Native students is up 0.5 points to 16;

The composite score for Asian students is up 0.6 points to 20.6.

The composite score for Black/African-American students is up 0.3 points to 15.3;

The composite score for Hispanic/Latino students is up 0.2 points to 16.4;

Fifty percent of students scored a silver or higher on a cross walk to WorkKeys, an indicator of career readiness.

Thirty-three percent of students who took three or more years of math beyond Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry were college ready (meeting benchmarks). Twenty-three percent of students who took at least three years of science coursework were college ready. For comparison, 18 percent of students who took the ACT met three or four benchmarks.

Nevada’s students showed improvement on average ACT scores in three of the four national benchmark categories:

English: Nevada improved from 16.1 last year to 16.3 while the national benchmark is 18.

Math: Nevada improved from 17.6 last year to 17.8 while the national benchmark is 22.

Reading: Nevada improved from 17.6 last year to 17.9 while the national benchmark is 22.

Science: Nevada remained steady at 17.7 while the national benchmark is 23.