Mississippi could become the first state to require a minimum ACT score to receive a high school diploma, as at least one legislator is getting serious about stopping the state’s inflation of its graduation rate.
State Rep. Gary Chism, R-Columbus, is proposing discontinuing subject-area testing and instead requiring a “satisfactory score” on the ACT to graduate.
House Bill 411 would require the state Board of Education to set that score beginning with the 2018-2019 school year. The bill says the board could increase that minimum from time to time.
A summary of all 50 states’ graduation requirements compiled by Education Week shows no one else has such a standard.
It would be a positive step because the Mississippi Board of Education has neutered the subject-area tests by not making them mandatory anymore.
About 19 percent of Mississippi high school graduates did not pass one or more of the subject-area tests (algebra I, U.S. history, biology and English II) last school year, according to data I received through a public records request and previously wrote about.
Before 2015, they would not have been able to graduate. However, the state board lowered the standards by creating several alternatives. The result has been the graduation rate steadily climbing — from 74.5 percent in 2014, the last year you had to pass the tests, to 82.3 percent in 2016 — and a lot of politicians bragging.
But we’ve gone from requiring an objective standard — a minimum score on the subject-area tests, which is a low bar in itself — to a subjective one that factors in course grades, which teachers can inflate to make sure students get diplomas. That ultimately does a disservice to the students, their future employers who expect high school grads to have a certain basic level of knowledge and the public who paid for their education for 13 years.
Chism’s bill would go back to an objective requirement: the ACT, the national standard for college admittance. Of course, the whole thing would hinge on where the state set the minimum score. The average ACT score for Mississippi in 2017 was 18.6.
But to be considered “college ready,” according to the benchmarks set by ACT, a student needs to make an 18 on English, 22 on math and reading and a 23 on science. Shouldn’t it be reasonable to expect high school graduates in today’s world, where a college degree is so necessary for success, to be “college ready” when they receive their high school diploma? That would require a composite score of about 21.
Obviously, the state is not going to raise the minimum ACT that high because multitudes would not graduate. But the score needs to be high enough where it’s meaningful. I think an 18 is reasonable.
I don’t know whether this bill will get much traction as the vast majority of proposed legislation never becomes law.
But even if it doesn’t pass this year, at least the idea is being brought up as part of the discussion about education in this state, where for too long trumped up statistics have been used to hide embarrassingly low academic performance from the people paying for it.
