No Change in the Large Racial Scoring Gap on the ACT Test

The American College Testing Program announced that high school students who graduated in 2006 improved their average score on the ACT standardized test for college admission by 0.2 points to 21.1. (The ACT is scored on a scale of 1 to 36.) This is the largest average score increase in the past two decades.

But there was no change in the racial scoring gap between blacks and whites. The average white composite score of 22.0 was about 14 percent higher than the average black score of 17.1 on the ACT’s 36-point scoring grid. The racial scoring gap was identical to the disparity between blacks and whites of a year ago.

Copyright © 2006. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.