ACT now

College bound students in Duluth are doing OK.

Poor kids – not so much:

Despite the Duluth school district’s failure to meet state standards in district-wide testing, its college-bound students continue to outperform the state average on a college-readiness exam.

I’d be interested in reviewing ACT test results in the era before Dixon. I think the results would be about the same. We’ve traditionally led the state for a decade and more just as the state has led the nation. The story’s point that some states get good results by only having 10 or 20% participation vs. better than two thirds participation by Minnesota’s students is well taken.

I don’t think many of the test takers this year left our District before taking the ACT test. They were already in high school when the worst of the Red Plan consequences hit and loathe to leave their friends in the last years of high school. In future years our test taking population could change perceptibly as some of the more ambitious Duluth students take their ACT tests in Proctor and Hermantown. Time will tell.

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