The Forgotten Middle: Ensuring that All Students Are on Target for College and Career Readiness before High School

This report details ACT's findings that the level of academic achievement students attain by the eighth grade has a larger impact on their college and career readiness by the time they graduate from high school than anything that happens academically in high school. ACT examined data from 216,000 high school graduates who had taken all three programs that make up the longitudinal assessment component of ACT’s College Readiness System. ACT found eighth-grade achievement (measured by the four EXPLORE scores in English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science) across gender and ethnicity displays a stronger relationship with 11th or 12th grade ACT scores, and therefore with college and career readiness, than does any other factor.

URL
Source
External Publication
Publisher(s)
ACT, Inc.
Publication Year
2008
Keyword: Level