On the 2008 TDOE Report Card, the Department reports both the 2007 and 2008 average composite ACT score as 20.7. But that’s NOT the average for Public School students in Tennessee. That’s the average for all 50,225 students who took the ACT test in 2008 (48,113 in 2007). And it overstates the average ACT score of Public School students by about a half a point.

The data reported by the ACT Corp. for Tennessee can be found here: http://www.act.org/news/data/08/pdf/states/Tennessee.pdf. Here’s an excerpt from the tables on page 9 of that report:

Here’s the misrepresentation by the Department:

In 2007, 35,715 Public School students took the ACT, with an average score of 20.3. In addition to those Public School students, 12,398 NON-Public School students also took the test, with an average score of 21.85. When you combine them with the public school students, it raises the state average from 20.3 to 20.7.

In 2008, 36,764 Public School students took the ACT, with an average score of 20.3. In addition to those Public School students, 13,461 NON-Public School students also took the test, with an average score of 21.79. When you combine them with the Public School students, it raises the overall state from 20.3 to 20.7.

The numbers and average scores for the Public School students are compiled from the Department’s own TVAAS system which gives results by school and by school system.

I have a full report (TN ACT Scores 2008.pdf) which pulls the data together and shows the average composite ACT score for all 119 school systems in Tennessee with high schools. Here’s a portion of the final page:

The report is an update to research I did last spring, during the furor over the Tennessee Department of Education’s arbitrary decision to reject homeschool diplomas for state regulated jobs in law enforcement and daycare. I was hoping to discover the average ACT score for Tennessee homeschool students so that I could compare it to the average ACT score for Tennessee public school students. Sadly, the ACT Corp. doesn’t report the homeschool scores separately for individual states.

The irony and outrage here is that the state Department of Education has the audacity to reject the high school diplomas issued by homeschools and church-related schools while at the same time using the higher ACT scores from those students to boost their own average.

The Tennessee legislature needs to take steps in 2009 to clearly adopt a policy that recognizes homeschool and church school diplomas and overturn the arrogant attacks by the Department of Education.

Rob Shearer, Vice President
Tennessee Association of Church-Related Schools (TACRS)

Rush Limbaugh 2008-05-22 on Tennessee diplomas:
[audio:http://www.greenleafpress.com/media/RLimbaugh TN diplomas 2008-05-22.mp3]

Hat tip to dittohead Ernie Blevins for the audio file and to Kay Brooks for editing out the pertinent three minutes!

Here’s a sampling of the incoming links on this topic:

Tennessee Mandates Low Quality Graduates Be Employed Over …

Good enough for government work

Tenn. Declares Only Dumbest Kids Wanted for State Jobs

TN State Education Board Fails Research Test …

Not worthless

Tennessee Makes Move Against Homeschooling

Tenn. Declares Only Dumbest Kids Wanted for State Jobs

Homeschoolers – under attack all over?

Socialist “Curriculum” cannot penetrate home schools…therefore …

Tennessee Education Board Fails Research Test19 May 2008 by Blue Collar Muse
Recently, the Tennessee State Board of Education ruled diplomas issued to home-schooled students from religious based schools were invalid as proof of the successful completion of High School should it be presented for employment …
New Media Alliance – Blue Collar Muse – http://thenma.org/blogs/index.php/bluecollarmuse

- Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

His friend, Warner Todd Huston picked up on the issue and added some insightful commentary on May 21st on stoptheaclu.com. The post has the provocative headline,Tenn. Declares Only Dumbest Kids Wanted for State Jobs.

Today, May 22nd, Rush Limbaugh picked up on the story and read Mr. Huston’s post on the air, commented on it, and is now linking back from his website to stoptheaclu.com (with a transcript of his on-air comments). Scroll down to story #12.

This afternoon (still 5/22/2008), Neil Boortz also picked up on the story. I don’t know if he said anything on the air, but he’s now linking back to the stoptheaclu.com post by Huston as well. Scroll down to the bottom of the page – it’s in the fifth paragraph from the bottom.

Kay Brooks summarizes all of the saga on her blog here – along with some very nice excerpts and additional comments.

I’ve got a feeling the Tennessee Department of Education is not enjoying this very much… [heh]

- Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center

I got curious this week about tracking down median ACT scores for Public vs. Private vs. Homeschool high school graduates. It turns out, even in the age of public data on the internet that this is not an easy question to answer. If the data to answer this question already exists somewhere on the internet, it’s extraordinarily well hidden. I spent several days searching for it… and I’m pretty handy with google. I did discover a blog in Kentucky which contained interesting articles commenting on the meaning of median ACT scores released for that state. Kentucky’s scores, released by ACT, Inc. of Iowa, give the median for ALL high school seniors, public, private, and homeschool. From the ACT data alone, you cannot tell how the public schools are performing, because ACT will not disagregate the data. Tennessee ACT scores are released in the same format as Kentucky.

But, it turns out, in Tennessee at least, there is a way to calculate median ACT score for the public schools. And if we know the number of public school students who took the ACT, and their median score, then we can calculate the median score for the remaining non-public school students.

In 2007, the median ACT for all students in Tennessee taking the test was 20.7. This is slightly below ( a half a point) the national ACT median score of 21.2. A half a point difference between two individual scores is probably not terribly significant. There are too many variables that can’t be controlled between two individual scores to ever be able to know why one student scored a half a point higher than another. BUT, comparing the median scores of two significantly sized groups IS meaningful… because all the individual variations offset and cancel each other out. 48,113 students took the ACT in Tennessee in 2007. 1,300,599 students took it nationwide. Comparing the averages for those two very large populations does tell us, with a pretty high degree of confidence, that Tennessee students did not perform quite as well as the national average.

But those 48,113 Tennessee students include public school, high school, and homeschool students. I have an inquiry in to ACT, Inc. asking them for the disaggregated data for those three groups, but they haven’t responded to me. The data would be very helpful in discussing some pretty pressing public policy questions about education. I don’t think it’s an accident that ACT doesn’t make the data readily available. I have the feeling that the data are not very flattering to public school administrators. And I suspect that’s why ACT hasn’t made them available.

But in Tennessee, there is another source of data about public school ACT scores – the Tennessee Department of Education itself. The Department has an online database that reports the number of students who took the ACT and the median composite score by school system. Actually, the online database has a great deal more information than that, but the median composite ACT scores are what I was interested in.

I don’t know whether it’s intentional or not, but the Tennessee DOE does not report the statewide median ACT score, nor does it make it easy to calculate, but all the pieces are there, on their website – they just have to be assembled.

So, I spent about four or five hours today, using the free wifi at University Pizza & Deli in Chattanooga, to pull up and copy off the median composite ACT scores for all 119 public high school systems in Tennessee. 35,725 public school students (out of 54,041 who graduate) too the ACT in 2007 – about 66.1% of the graduates. The median composite ACT score for all of them was 20.30. Since there were a total of 48,113 students who took the ACT in Tennessee, we can subtract out the public school students and the remaining 12,388 students were non-public school (private schools and home schools). And since we know the median composite ACT score for ALL students in Tennessee was 20.7 and the median for the PUBLIC school students was 20.30, we can calculate what the median composite score for the non-public schools was: that median composite ACT score in 2007 was 21.85.

So, we can now end the speculation and report with confidence that in 2007, in Tennessee, ALL students averaged a 20.7 composite ACT score, PUBLIC SCHOOL students averaged a 20.30 composite ACT score, and PRIVATE SCHOOL students averaged 21.85 composite ACT score. In other words, in 2007 private schools and home schools averaged 1.15 points higher on the ACT than the public schools. But of course, it’s the private school diplomas that the Department of Education thinks are suspect.

Since I had to compile the data for all 119 systems in a spreadsheet, I’ll post all of the data here – so that others can check my calculations, and so that the data will be available to everyone interested.

There are a number of other interesting observations about the public high schools that can be made from the data.

For example, here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the HIGHEST median composite ACT scores:

And here are the 10 public school systems with the LOWEST median composite ACT scores:

Here are the Here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the HIGHEST percentage of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

And here are the Here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the LOWEST percentage of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

Here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the LARGEST number of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

And here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the SMALLEST number of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

The only significant sized sample of homeschoolers with ACT scores that I could find were 1997, 1998, and 2004 data released by ACT (cited on the HSLDA website). ACT reported that in 1997, 1,926 homeschoolers had a median composite ACT score of 22.5. ACT reported that in 1998, 2,610 homeschoolers had a median composite ACT score of 22.8. ACT reported that in 2004, 7,858 homeschoolers had a median composite ACT score of 22.6. These data are remarkably consistent over time AND they are significantly ABOVE the national averages. But remember, according the the Tennessee Department of Education, it is the homeschooler’s diplomas that are suspect.

Now, don’t you feel like you know the public school system in Tennessee much better?

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. Comments encouraged and solicited. Once again: here is the data. Or should that be, “here ARE the data…”

- Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center