Only 4% of Memphis City Schools seniors are ready for college, based on their scores on the ACT, the college entrance exam taken by district seniors. In other words, of 6,774 seniors, only 271 are college ready.
It’s a disturbing statistic that speaks to why closing the achievement gap should be a priority for Memphis and Shelby County. It’s also why brain development of children from 0-3 should be a top priority since targeted early childhood interventions pay the most returns on investment for children.
Too often, the answer to the achievement gap is seen as better pre-K educational programs. In the Memphis City Schools’ system, Pre-K is the year prior to kindergarten. Pre-K programs are extremely important, but it’s worth remembering that the achievement gap appears as early as nine months of age and puts children caught in it seriously at-risk.
They are:
- 25% more likely to drop out of school
- 40% more likely to become a teen parent
- 50% more likely to be placed in special education
- 60% more likely to never attend college
- 70% more likely to be arrested for a violent crime
The National Governors Association has called the achievement gap between low-income children and their higher-income counterparts ”one of the most pressing education policy challenges that states currently face.” The same is true for Memphis and Shelby County.
As the new unified school board gets under way, we expect them to concentrate on more than just the organizational structure for the new countywide school district. More to the point, we expect them first to develop their aspirations, goals, and their plans of action and then develop the structure that can accomplish them. We urge the new school board to think about the education of our children as more than K-12. In truth, it should be about a coordinated plan that begins at birth, because accepting anything less is the same as accepting that a large percentage of our children won’t live up to their full potential.
Put simply, the course of a child’s life can be altered beginning at conception by interventions that shift his odds to more positive outcomes. All children are born wired for feelings and ready to learn, and as a result, their early environments and nurturing relationships are crucial. The brain development from birth to three years is highly active but also highly vulnerable, and because of it, what happens in the first 36 months of every child’s life sets the framework for what follows – it can be strong or it can be fragile.
So much of children’s development depends on the ability of their parents to provide close, dependable, responsive relationships that encourage exploration, vocabulary development, and creative connections between ideas. That’s why we advocate for the simple initiative of Touch, Talk, Read, Play – simple things that are life changing for children. These are every day things that busy parents, teachers, and grandparents can do and it’s why we partner with Neighborhood Christian Center and others to spread the word about Touch, Talk, Read, Play.
Many low-income children are away from their parents in low-quality child care programs and parked in front of television sets. Many do not have the early learning opportunities – such as Early Head Start, Head Start, and high quality child care – that can make such a big difference in whether a child is ready for school. The good news is that we do have these programs under way in Memphis, but there are nowhere near enough slots for those eligible. We still all need to advocate for more high quality home visitation, positive parenting initiatives, and child care centers as well as preschool, and prekindergarten programs. This kind of seamless system connecting early childhood care and development, early childhood education, and K-12 would be our best achievement in closing today’s gap.
Ultimately, the question is this: Who’s responsible for closing the achievement gap? The answer is: We are.
You might check those numbers. About 2,000 MCS students hit 19 or above according to Irving Hamer. We have a post on this at MemphisNewsBlog.com right now. ACT defines “college ready” as exceeding benchmark scores in all 4 subject areas. SCS only has 20 percent at that level but does have 62 percent scoring at 19 or above.
Thanks, Zack.
The 4% seniors scoring 19 or above comes from Dr. Cash’s report to the school board. It’s down from 6% in past couple of years.
This is from CA article September 16: “ACT scores also have fallen since Cash arrived. So have the accompanying college readiness scores, an indication of how many students can expect to pass core college courses. The district says the reason scores have dropped is because all juniors are now required to take the ACT. Since 2008, 35 percent more students have taken the test. In Memphis, only 4 percent of public school students can expect that, based on their ACT scores, down from 6 percent in Cash’s first year.”
We were thinking that maybe the difference in the numbers is the difference between just senior test scores and all students’ test score, but it’s hard to see how the number of college readiness students gets to 2,000 students. If our math is right, that would mean that 50,000 students would have to take the ACT. That doesn’t seem possible since it’s almost half of the entire student enrollment.
We were thinking yesterday that perhaps the score of 19 for college readiness might be generous. According to ACT, a student has a 75% of earning a C in college by scoring 18 in English, 22 in Algebra, 21 in Social Sciences, and 24 in Biology.
We appreciate your comment. If you hear more, let us know.
I will ask MCS to clarify with specific numbers next week (we’ll post it at MemphisNewsBlog.com), but I think the key distinction here involves what Cash means by “college ready.” I’m pretty sure he means the ACT benchmarks and NOT a composite score of 19 or above. I could be wrong, but I think that saying only 271 MCS students scored 19 or above is an error.
A score of 19 on the ACT is NOT deemed college ready by the ACT, so it is possible that MCS could A) have 2,000 students scoring 19 or above and yet B) have only 5 percent (the 271 number you mentioned) students defined as college ready according to the ACT (while certainly keeping in mind that the student raised by a single grandmother in Boxtown who scores a 19 on the ACT might be better evidence of smarts and determination than if, say, my middle-class son becomes a party animal and still nails a 27 on the ACT). Here’s the ACT site: http://www.act.org/standard/pdf/CRS.pdf
According to the ACT, to be deemed as “college ready” you must score a 24 in Science, 21 in math, 22 in reading and 18 in English. If you score 23 in Science, 22 in math, 23 in reading and 25 in English … you are not deemed college ready. Whether your composite score is a 19 has nothing to do with defining “college ready.” SCS only has 20 percent of its students deemed “college ready” but does have 62 percent scoring 19 or above and a really high percentage that enrolls in college (would be curious to know MCS’s college-enrollment number, too … because as mentioned above colleges would probably be thrilled to enroll an honor-roll student with an 18 on the ACT from, say, Frayser or South Memphis).
Whether the 2,000 number from Hamer is just juniors or juniors and seniors, I am unsure, but I know for sure he was saying 2,000 scored 19 or above and NOT that 2,000 were defined as college ready according to the much-higher ACT benchmark.
Thanks, Zack. It won’t be the first time MCS has provided differing numbers (think enrollment numbers), but it may be mix-ups in terms. At any rate, removing 19 from the equation) the sad fact remains: Only 4% of Memphis City Schools seniors are ready for college, based on their scores on the ACT, the college entrance exam taken by district seniors. In other words, of 6,774 seniors, only 271 are college ready.
Right?
It has been my experience that you can’t put much faith in what’s in various reports put out by top officials in any organization or what the officials say when talking about statistics of their operations.
I remember several years ago then county mayor A C Wharton told a local group that tourism was very important to the community because it provides a lot of local sales tax revenue for county government. Tourism is important to the community. However, it provides little or no sales tax revenue for county government.
The comments above appear to make it clear that news reporting in the community is very weak on things like ACT scores. If reporters are really going to cover ACT scrores, they should go and look at the basic ACT reports that the school system receives and then gain some understaning of what the reports mean by talking to ACT folks themselves and others who are familiar with the ACT.
Also, in trying to determine how many MCS seniors are prepared for college, you have to look at results of the the SAT as well as the ACT results. Overall, not many students take the SAT, but those who do take it include many of the school system’s highest performing students. The SAT, not ACT, is the reqirement of the top line universities in the East and Northeast.