The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WHICH STATE SCHOOLS HAD BEST ACT SCORES IN 2016
Number of students taking test in Georgia continues to grow.
The latest results of the ACT test have Georgia seniors notching slight gains, with the schools at the top well-known for high performance.
The number of students taking the college-entrance exam continued to grow in Georgia, as it did across the nation. Though scores have been dropping across the country, as typically happens with higher participation, they’re continuing to rise here, with as many as four out of five seniors taking the test at some of the best-performing schools, according to a comparison of testing and enrollment data by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology, once again, proved unbeatable. The Gwinnett County school had an average composite score of 28.7, the highest of any public school in Georgia, followed closely by Northview High in Fulton County. The two schools were also neck-and-neck on the SAT, with the class of 2015 at the Gwinnett school leading the way.
The SAT results for the class of 2016 are due soon. That test was overhauled last spring and is now similar to the ACT, except it doesn’t have a science section. Both tests are used by colleges to winnow students in their admissions process.
Helen Loyd, whose daughter Cameron graduated from the Gwinnett STEM school in May,
earned a composite ACT score of 36, the best possible result. The mother credited teachers for holding high expectations and for tutoring kids before and after school. She said the school tries to prepare students for the exams by having them take the PSAT during their freshman year and a mock ACT exam, which Cameron took as a junior.
That helps students with anxiety on test day, said Loyd, former co-president of the school’s parent teacher student association. “They know what to expect.”
Students who took more rigorous courses, such as physics, had higher scores than those taking general courses, Cobb County school officials said.
One characteristic shared by most of the state’s top 50 schools: a relatively low rate of economic distress among students, as evidenced by eligibility rates for the federal subsidized meal program. Forty-six of the top 50 schools had free or reducedprice lunch participation rates below 50 percent.
At Walton High in Cobb County and Lambert High in Forsyth County, the rate was below the 5 percent threshold for reporting. At Northview High, the rate was 6 percent. There were exceptions. The rate was above 95 percent at two schools in Richmond County, though they are magnet schools and magnet schools typically enroll higher-performing students.
Another commonality among the 50 best performers: They tend to be in metro Atlanta. Fulton County had five schools in the top 10, more than any school district in Georgia. Gwinnett County had two, and Cobb and Fayette counties each had one. The only non-metro area school in that elite bunch was Columbus High in Muscogee County.
The test participation rate among the class of 2016 ranged from 83 percent at 12th-ranked Starrs Mill High in Fayette County to 36 percent at Lakeside High in Columbia County. More than half the seniors at 40 of the top 50 schools took the ACT, suggesting that the high scores aren’t coming from a small elite within each school. More than 58,000 Georgians in the class of 2016 took the test, a more than 20 percent increase from 2012. The continued rise in scores despite a drop nationwide as the ACT gained popularity, is evidence that the state is doing something right, said Dana Rickman, researcher with the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. Scores among whites and minority groups rose, despite the swelling ranks of Georgia test takers, which is approaching the nearly 73,000 who took the SAT last time.
“You would expect the average scores to go down, and we don’t see that in Georgia,” she said. “That’s actually pretty impressive.”