By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
While area high schools may have experienced a drop in the average composite score on the yearly ACT exams, principals are taking the information with a grain of salt.
The drops – anywhere from one to three points – have in large part to do with the fact that all high school juniors are now required to take the exam. Previously, only students looking for admission to a four-year college took the exam.
Now, the State of Wisconsin is using the ACT suite to assess students instead of the old Wisconsin Knowledge Concepts Exam.
Waterford Union High School continued to lead the immediate area, posting a 21.5 composite score average, while Union Grove had a 20.3 average.
Burlington’s was just shy of the state average of 19.9, coming in at 19.8.
A year ago, Waterford’s average was 23.5, while Union Grove’s was 21.9 and Burlington’s 22.2.
All three principals cautioned that the added numbers of students taking the test had brought the average down.
“In the past, you always had students that had college on the schedule,” said WUHS Superintendent Keith Brandstetter. “Now everyone’s taking it.”
Added Union Grove District Administrator Al Mollerskov, “I felt that it was a bit of a vested interest when you take it. If I don’t have a vested interest, do I really apply myself?”
Brandstetter pointed out that there are now students taking the test who are looking at careers in a technical field, or perhaps attending a technical college in order to work in a skill career like welding, car repair or computer technician.
“We’re not testing if you can run a CNC machine,” Brandstetter explained. “We’re only testing college readiness. We’re not testing some of the other things we teach.
“We have to remember what its purpose is,” he added.
The sheer number of students taking the test likely drops the averages as well, said Mollerskov, pointing out that 230 juniors took the exam in the spring at the school.
The year before, Union Grove had the highest percentage of students in the Southern Lakes Conference taking the exam – 72.8 percent.
“The higher number of students I test, the more the score will go down,” Mollerskov said.
At Burlington High School, Principal Eric Burling seemed pleased with how the testing had gone, but also cautioned that the process now includes many more students who wouldn’t ordinarily take the exam.
At BHS, between 55 and 60 percent of the students normally took the ACT before the exam was required.
Union Grove Principal Tom Herrmann said that technical schools are also starting to use the exam, so more students are taking it.
“I was pleasantly surprised, actually,” he said. “All of the students who took it were as diligent as they could be.”
Herrmann added that some students “surprised themselves with their own results.”
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