The Kansas ACT results just released for the 2024 school year show further declines in both raw scores and college readiness. The test is typically taken in the Spring of each calendar year.
The ACT composite score, which has been declining since 2017, dropped to 19.3 and remains below the national average. College readiness in English, Reading, Math, and Science hit a new low of just 18% and has nearly fallen by half from 32% in 2015.
Participation also declined, from 74% last year to 72%. Research shows that scores tend to increase as participation declines, yet the opposite happened in Kansas.[i]
Low college readiness is not surprising, as the state assessment results for 10th-graders are abysmally low. Only 24% are proficient in math, and just 28% in English language arts.
College readiness won’t change until adult behaviors change
For years, the State Board of Education and school administrators insisted that more money would improve outcomes. No legitimate research proved their contention, but they had to blame low achievement on something.
What parents have seen is just the opposite of what they were told. Spending per student has risen much faster than inflation, but college readiness continues to fall.
The problem isn’t money. It’s that the adults in charge won’t change their behavior.
The State Board of Education began de-emphasizing academic improvement in 2016 with an accreditation system that doesn’t require improvement on the state assessment. State Board members know that school districts violate state laws (refusing to spend at-risk funding as required) and look the other way.
Most superintendents won’t allow school board members to fulfill their legal obligation to conduct annual needs assessments in each school, and again, the State Board of Education says nothing.
Some legislators in both parties are also to blame. They know all this is happening but don’t want to get involved because they know the education system will work against them in elections, and getting re-elected is more important than getting students the education they deserve.
So don’t blame teachers for these dismal results; blame the administrators and board members in charge.
With less than a month to go before new legislators and State School Board members are elected, voters should ask candidates if they will vote to strip accreditation from districts that don’t comply with state law. It’s a simple litmus test to distinguish between student-focused candidates and those who put the system first.
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[i] The Kansas Legislature began offering to pay the test fee for students in 2020, and the Department of Education blamed the decline in the composite score and college readiness on the participation rate increasing to 82% that year. National research indicates that higher participation may have had some impact, but results had been declining before 2020 and subsequently despite participation falling back to previous levels.
