Press Release:
ACT Results Underscore Need for High School Reform, Says Gov. Bob Wise
Washington, DC – This morning, in response to the release of the 2009 ACT test scores, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, made the following statement:
“Today’s ACT results show that the glass is at least one quarter full. ACT has done an excellent job documenting the college readiness of students, and the good news is that more students from diverse backgrounds are taking the exam. But while these findings reference college readiness, they are really about the need to transform high schools.
“Having only 23 percent of high school students ready for college won’t help the nation reach the president’s goal of leading the world in college graduates by 2020. If the United States is to move from fifteenth in the world to first, much more educational heavy lifting needs to be done.
“Congress has begun addressing students’ financial ability to go to college; these results show that it must also focus on ensuring that high schools provide students with the academic ability to succeed in college.”
National and state scores are available from ACT at http://www.act.org/news/data/09/index.html.
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The Alliance for Excellent Education is a Washington, DC-based policy, research, and advocacy organization that works to make every child a graduate, prepared for postsecondary education and success in life. For more information about the Alliance for Excellent Education, please visit https://all4ed.org .