ACT scores up for Fort Morgan 11th-graders

 

The results of ACT tests taken by Fort Morgan 11th-graders last school year were up slightly compared to the previous year, according to results released by the Fort Morgan School District.

The students who will graduate this spring scored .2 of a point above last year's seniors on the test, which is first taken during the junior year of high school, in both English and math and .1 higher in reading and science. Composite score averages were statistically the same between the classes of 2011 and 2010, according to results released by the district, sitting at 17.5 points.

Math was the highest score in this year's ACT results, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Assessment Joy Perry said, indicating that could be seen as a result of the emphasis on math instruction at the high school. Fort Morgan students averaged 17.9 points on the math portion. The state average for math was 20.4.

English was lowest-scoring section on average for Fort Morgan students. This was also the subject on which the local students were the furthest behind the state average, with Fort Morgan averaging 16.1 points and the statewide average being 20.1 points.
But Fort Morgan students averaged 17.7 points or reading, compared to the state average of 20.9 points. While up from the previous years, the reading scores seem to be trending down overall, as average scores above 18 points were common for the seven years before that.

However, those numbers may be slightly deceiving due to changes in the type of data reported to the state and included in the statistics, according to Perry.
Perry told the Fort Morgan Board of Education that "no scores" from students who didn't test weren't factored into 2011 results, but they had been in 2010.
Board member Rob Carruth worried that because of the change the data wasn't correct in its analysis of scores being slightly up.
"We're not really comparing apples to apples," he said. "2011 is kind of a new baseline."