School district U-46 makes modest gains on ACT scores

High school students across the state's second largest school district made modest gains on the ACT, according to scores released Wednesday by the Iowa-based testing group.

The composite scores for the 2,438 U-46 graduates who took the exam during the spring of their junior year rose from 19.3 in 2008 to 19.6 in 2009.

Individually, four of the five district high schools made gains over the past year.

Elgin High's composite score rose a full point, from 17.8 to 18.8.

Bartlett High's rose from 20.9 to 21.3.

South Elgin High saw a half-point gain, moving from 19 to 19.5.

Larkin's score remained flat at 19.1.

Streamwood High saw scores drop half a point, from 18.8 to 18.3.

As a whole, U-46 whittled the gap between the state average and the district average in every individual subject area - English, reading, science and math.

Its average composite score, however, still lags more than a point behind the state average of 20.8.

Associated Press contributed to this report

The ACT is scored on a 36-point scale.

Elgin High School Principal Dave Smiley said his school's 1-point improvement was "no magic."

The Class of 2009 had previously displayed their potential as sophomores on the PLAN practice ACT test, and as eighth-graders on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test,

Smiley called the ACT "a battle." The science portion, in particular, has been tough for his students.

To help combat that, Smiley said, teachers have focused on teaching technical vocabulary often used in the test. ACT tutorials and a focus on test-taking skills have also helped, he said.

District spokesman Tony Sanders said U-46 was in the process of "reviewing the data provided by ACT to see what patterns emerge, looking at individual schools to see what might improve their scores."

Bartlett, Elgin, Streamwood and Larkin high schools have all failed to meet state standards in reading and math for the past six years. South Elgin, which opened in 2004, has failed for the past two years.

In the past year, several new initiatives have been launched to help boost academic achievement.

Among them, summer bridge program for students identified as academically "at risk" was started last summer to help ease the transition eighth grade to high school. Foreign language courses will be taught at the district's eight middle schools next fall; and study skills courses will be offered to average-performing seventh- and ninth-graders, with the aim of having more students take - and perform well - in advanced classes.

Nationally, more students earned scores indicating they're prepared to succeed in college in all four areas tested by the ACT: English, math, reading and science. However, the increases were slight, and more than three-quarters of graduates still fail to meet that benchmark, suggesting those who went on to college need remedial work in at least one subject.

Last spring's seniors averaged a composite score of 21.1, on the test's scale of 1 to 36. Sub-scores on English, math and reading were unchanged while science inched up 0.1 points.

The percent reaching college-readiness benchmarks in all four subjects rose to 23 percent, from 22 for the class of 2008.

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