20-Year ACT Performance in Illinois Shows Consistent Improvement

Just-released data from ACT shows that Illinois ACT scores were up .2 points overall for the Class of 2011, capping a 20-year trend of consistent and substantial ACT score increases. 

Since the ACT test currently is the best overall measure of student academic performance in Illinois, due to its decades-long track record of relative reliability and validity across the country, the data are particularly significant. The study was conducted by the Department of Research and Evaluation at . 

Using the Class of 1991 as the baseline, the graph in the attached PDF depicts overall Illinois Final ACT Report composite score performance changes over the past 20 years. The large drop in Illinois scores between the Classes of 2001 and 2002 was due to the change to universal testing, when ACT testing levels in Illinois changed from 71 percent of all graduates to 99 percent of all graduates.  Most new test takers were Illinois’ lowest performing students. With such a greatly different student pool, there is no way to compare performance between those two classes.

Illinois ACT performance has increased in 13 of the remaining 19 years. Performance stayed the same in five years. In only one of the remaining 19 years did the performance decline, and ACT data for the Class of 2011 show a rebound to an even higher level from that slight Class of 2010 dip. For the Classes of 1991 through 2001, the era of college-bound only testing, the composite scores in Illinois went up .8, double the .4 increase for the national average.

During the universal testing years, ACT performance also increased .8 points from the Class of 2002 to the Class of 2011, 22/3 times the .3 increase for the national average. In fact, the universal testing of Class of 2011 students produced higher average scores than for the college-bound only tested Class of 1991.

This year’s Illinois scores also are the highest of the ten universal testing states; those testing more than 90 percent of their high school graduates. 

— Submitted by School District 214