South Dakota high school students continue to receive ACT scores above the national average. A spokesperson with the South Dakota Department of Education says the test is one measure of how the state’s education system is performing.
For the second year in a row, South Dakota high schoolers earned an average score of 21.9 on their ACT. The national average is 21.0. Department of Education spokesperson Mary Stadick Smith says that’s especially encouraging when an estimated 78 percent of the 2014 graduating class took the exam. But, she says, there’s still room for improvement. About one in four students who enter the public universities in South Dakota need to do some remedial coursework.
“You also want to look at the individual portions of the ACT and one of the things that we look at, our South Dakota Board of Regents Universities, when they look at ACT scores, they have this cut point in English and in math,” Stadick Smith says. “And if the student doesn’t make that cutoff point, the student will be required to do some sort of remediation when they get to college.”
Stadick Smith says officials with the Department of Education and Board of Regents have created online opportunities for students to gain proficiency in English and math before leaving high school. You can learn more about those opportunities by talking with a guidance counselor, or by visiting South Dakota My Life here.