ACT state stats here

ACT

Slowly climbing

Here’s a little data behind Tom Weber’s MPR story on the improvement in state scores on the ACT standardized college entrance exam.

Below is a chart showing that Minnesota tops the states where the majority of students take the test. (Seven out of 10 students took it in Minnesota.)

Other states scored higher — topped by Massachusetts with 24.0 — but those were usually ones where only about a quarter of the high school graduates took the test (such as in the New England states).

Education Commissioner Alice Seagren said such low participation rates mean the scores might not be representative of the state’s true achievement rate. That might lead one to think that test-taking in those states is something done by more affluent, higher-achieving students.

You can check out all the states’ scores on the ACT Web site.