The Better, Reasoned Approach on ACT Scores

There’s been ongoing discussion about the ACT test results at our high school. Among a smaller percentage of students, those scores are higher over these last two years. That’s good news for those who actually took the test.

Results require a context; the fitting context for scores is the participation rate of students taking a test.

Participation rates are critical for understanding an organization’s genuine progress because they show how broad-based an accomplishment truly is.

Unlike the state, unlike most districts with four-year UW System campuses, and even unlike most districts in Rock, Jefferson, and Walworth counties, our district has a low and declining participation rate.

Our much-touted success has come through the efforts of fewer and fewer students.

Participation Ranking of Nearby Communities. The table below shows how Whitewater ranks by ACT composite participation rate, as compared with nearby districts, over several years (’09-’10, ’13-’14).

	CITY	COUNTY	’09-’10	’13-’14	CHANGE
1	WILLIAMS BAY	WALWORTH	71	74.3	+3.3
2	LAKE MILLS	JEFFERSON	56.9	70	+13.1
3	PARKVIEW	ROCK	62.1	68.3	+6.2
4	CLINTON	ROCK	64.5	61.5	-3
5	ELKHORN	WALWORTH	55.1	60.8	+5.7
6	EAST TROY	WALWORTH	72.5	60.5	-12
7	MILTON	ROCK	63.7	60.3	-3.4
8	BELOIT-TURNER	ROCK	60.2	60.2	—
9	LAKE GENEVA- GENOA CITY	WALWORTH	49.3	59.5	+10.2
10	JANESVILLE	ROCK	58.7	57.5	-1.2
11	DELAVAN-DARIEN	WALWORTH	50.4	57.1	+6.7
12	WATERLOO	JEFFERSON	49.3	56.5	+7.2
13	JOHNSON CREEK	JEFFERSON	55.1	56.3	+1.2
14	BIGFOOT	WALWORTH	58.4	56.3	-2.1
15	JEFFERSON	JEFFERSON	52.4	53.6	+1.2
16	FORT ATKINSON	JEFFERSON	54.1	52.2	-1.9
17	PALMYRA-EAGLE	JEFFERSON	59.1	52	-7.1
18	WATERTOWN	JEFFERSON	45.5	48.6	+3.1
19	EDGERTON	ROCK	52.3	47.1	-5.2
20	WHITEWATER	WALWORTH	66.2	45.8	-20.4
21	BELOIT	ROCK	45.2	44.2	-1

Only Beloit had a lower participation rate. No district had a steeper participation drop.

Credit where credit is truly due. I’ve written about the latest scores before, and I’ve properly credited the students who took the ACT, and the teachers who helped them achieve good scores.

They – individually and specifically – have earned these results.

Organizationally, however, these are increasingly limited results that do not redound to the credit of those who have presided over a marked decline in overall participation.

Even in a university town, we now have only a minority of students taking the ACT.

Three sketchy comparisons in a row. We’ve now heard three feeble comparative contentions about Whitewater’s scores: a comparison to the state, a comparison to UW Systems schools, and now a comparison to nearby schools.

In not one of those cases does our participation rate compare well. In the case of nearby schools, it’s not even an apt comparison – many of these districts are far smaller.

The use of the Rock Valley Athletic Conference is especially blatant cherry-picking: these districts are much smaller than our district and they’re not even demographically similar communities. It’s an athletic not an academic conference, after all.

The better approach. Instead of deceptive and dodgy crowing about being number one, here’s how these results could have been presented:

Whitewater High School’s ACT test-takers have earned higher scores this year than last. We’re proud of their accomplishments, but we know that there’s critical work to be done to make sure that more students take the test. Each and every year, we should strive to assure that greater numbers of students in our university town take the ACT.

That would have been fair and serious.

These scores should have been more than an organization’s political claim, more than a transparent PR talking point. There’s not enough bright red font in all the world to make a dodgy claim a sound one.

Schooling, Education, Lifelong Learning. Men and women truly committed to scholastic accomplishment – rather than flimsy public-relations efforts — should understand the difference between sound analysis and deceptive crowing. They should embrace the former and reject the latter.

Ironically, the touting of these results as proof of organizational (rather than individual) success fails to meet the standards of reasoning that one should expect from properly educated students.

Participation shouldn’t have declined so precipitously; greater participation shouldn’t have been set aside or ignored for some future time.

There could have been greater participation, rather than decline, these last few years.

I’m confident that Whitewater should and can do better.

Success is more than a topline score.

Prior posts on this topic: Whitewater’s ACT Scores and Participation Rates and What’s Being Done is More than Just a (Sketchy) Number.

Data are available at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction website: WI DPI Dashboard.