Kentucky students who are in the class of 2024 performed among the top of states testing 100 percent of their students on the ACT college admissions exam, according to data released on Wednesday.
The 51,029 Kentucky students who were tested earned an average composite score of 18.6 on the ACT. A total of 62 students earned a perfect composite score of 36. That ranks third among all states testing 100 percent of their graduates; behind Wyoming, which only had about 13% of Kentucky’s class size, and an average composite score of 19.1; and Tennessee, which had 50 percent more students take the test than Kentucky, and whose average composite score was 18.8.
Kentucky’s average composite score fell slightly from the 18.7 score recorded by the Kentucky class of 2023 and matches the score recorded by the class of 2022.
Looking deeper into the numbers, 48 percent of Kentucky students met the English benchmark, 23 percent reached the math benchmark, 36 percent made the reading benchmark, and the science benchmark was attained by 24 percent. Overall, Kentucky was third in the benchmarks, except for reading, where the students finished second among all nine states testing 100 percent of their students.
“Seeing Kentucky students perform near the top of their peer group is always a positive,” Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher said.“As with any assessment, the results paint a complex picture, but there’s certainly room for encouragement and room for improvement.”
The other six states that test every student are Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, and Oklahoma.
The ACT is administered to all Kentucky high school juniors as part of state testing, which the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) funds, and measures students’ level of readiness for college in core academic content areas. KDE also funds an optional free senior retake opportunity, which enabled more than 6,700 more graduates in 2024 to meet college readiness benchmarks.
“One of our main goals at the Kentucky Department of Education is to give students as many opportunities to succeed as possible, and the free senior retake opportunity is another example of our support for that mission,” Fletcher noted.
KDE is offering the free senior retake opportunity again for the class of 2025.
By Tom Latek, Kentucky Today
