The average ACT score in Louisiana has increased by 0.2 points—the largest gain in the nation.
Louisiana’s performance also placed it third overall among six states in the southeastern region.
State Superintendent John White noted in a conference call Tuesday that many other states’ scores remained flat.
“It can give you some indication of how significant a .2 point gain is in a year when every other state in our category was flat,” White said. “The progress we’re seeing is vaulting us in front of other states. This is remarkable progress for a state that has long been discussed as one of the bottom two or three in America. Now we are listed as a top one in the region.”
Beginning in 2013, Louisiana for the first time required all high school juniors to take the ACT. In 2015, the state’s average most recent ACT score was a 19.4, an increase from a 19.2 the previous year. The 2015 composite score put Louisiana’s average ahead of Alabama, at 19.1; Mississippi, at 19.0; and North Carolina, at 19.0.
The Louisiana Department of Education credits significant increases in the number of Louisiana students meeting ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, the subject-specific scores which are indicators of college readiness, for the improvement in overall composite scores.
In English, 59% of students achieved the benchmark score of 18 or higher, an increase of three percentage points from 2014. Likewise, African-American students meeting the benchmark increased three percentage points to 37%. The percentage of all students achieving the science benchmark score of 23 increased three percentage points to 27%, while African-American students also saw a 3 percentage point increase.
