The nation’s report card ranks Louisiana between 44th and 49th in math and reading assessments. However, the report shows the state has made more improvement than any other state in 8th-grade math. State Superintendent of Education John White says the findings indicate the state is turning around.
“We’re digging ourselves out of a very deep hole. It’s a hole that is rooted in our history. The question is, for today, for this moment, can we begin to dig ourselves out of that hole and make progress and I think today’s announcement is evident that the answer is yes,” said White.
Eighth graders were ranked 48th for math. White says among the challenges to tackle in Louisiana is attracting STEM teachers to the education field.
“We’ve got a science and technology and mathematics industry with oil and gas here, with the river here, that attracts legions of math majors to those industries, and not as many to the classroom,” said White.
The state ranked 49th on the ACT, down from 45th last year. Louisiana is one of 15 states requiring all high school students to take the ACT and ranked 13th among those, only ahead of Mississippi and Nevada. White says those results are a letdown.
“It’s a little bit hard to figure given that we’ve had such great growth on the national test why on the ACT we took a little dip in math. Of course, we are not satisfied with that. We’re going to dig in on that and try to do better next year,” said White.
The state composite ACT score was 18.8, down from 19.2 last year, compared to the national average of 20.7, which is also down just slightly from 20.8 last year. Results are based on a scale of 1-36.
