School is in full-swing for Kane County as of Wednesday, with the exception of Aurora East District 131 beginning Monday, Aug. 25. Although ACT testing for high school juniors probably seems eons away, the Illinois State Board of Education has released encouraging test results from the class of 2014.

This year’s graduating class achieved a composite score of 20.7 on the ACT, giving Illinois the second highest score among the 12 states that tested 100 percent of their graduates. Also noted from ISBE, the percentage of students meeting all four of ACT’s benchmarks for College and Career Readiness increased to 26 percent this year, from 25 percent in 2013.

State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch explained that that Illinois continues to be a leader in promoting college and career readiness.

“We will continue to lead as our schools apply standards that emphasize a great depth of knowledge and real-world application, and [as] we implement a new generation of assessments.”

In previous years, the ACT was included in the Prairie State Achievement examination, which Illinois high school students will no longer take. Instead, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers will be administered to high school students as well as third- through eighth-graders. The ISBE notes on their website that it is still encouraging schools to use the ACT in their testing procedures.

“Although the ACT will no longer be required, districts have the option this year of also administering the ACT to all 11^th grade students at no cost to the district, in addition to giving students the PARCC exams,” the website says.

PARCC assessments are aligned with state standards in English language arts and mathematics. High school students will take tests aligned to standards in ELA III, Algebra II or Integrated Math III this school year. The tests are designed to measure college and career readiness and

In 2013, the Chicago Tribune compiled the Kane County K-12 schools into a chart broken down into ISAT rank, class size, percentage of low-income students, PSAE rank, and ACT composite score. The statistics are provided by the annual Illinois Report Card, an ISBE site with the capability of searching by individual school or district.

 To learn more about ACT composite scores or PARCC, please visit the Illinois State Board of Education website.

SOURCE: Posted by Kane County Regional Office of Education