The ACT Isn’t Racially Biased Because “Black" and “White” Aren’t Races

…but hard work and ambition are real

I recently did an analysis of the 2023 ACT scores that’s been published on the National Association of Scholars website, Minding the Campus and the website of the London-based anti-racism group, Don’t Divide Us.

This is the most recent of several analyses that I’ve done on the ACT (e.g., here, here, and here), and the basic story hasn’t changed: Students who work hard in high school and have high postgraduate aspirations do far better than students who take less rigorous courses and have more modest aspirations, irrespective of their “race or ethnicity.“

Personally, I don’t understand why there’s so much pushback against standardized tests. The only plausible reason that I can fathom is that standardized tests provide a clear indication of where you stand academically. And, nobody wants to know that they’re not doing well. Fair enough. I get that. However, that point aside, standardized tests — particularly straightforward, well-constructed tests like the ACT — have an interesting story to tell. Sadly, most people ignore it.

For those of you who like educational data as much as I do — or have children in high school — I’d like to share my recent analysis… The story is different than the one you’ll read in the mainstream press.

In case you don’t remember, the ACT has four multiple-choice subject sections — English, math, reading, and science. The number of correct answers on each multiple-choice section is converted to a scaled score from 1–36 and averaged into a student’s overall composite score. Thirty-six would be perfect.

In 2005, the ACT established four, empirically based “College Readiness Benchmark Scores” that were updated in 2013 to 18 for English, 22 for math and reading, and 23 for science. These are the minimum scores that predict a 50% chance of earning B, or a 75% chance of earning C in a corresponding credit-bearing college course.

To understand trends in the ACT, you have to look beyond the year-to-year fluctuations. The ACT suggests 5-to-10-year intervals. So, in this analysis, I compared the most recent (2023) scores to those from one and two decades prior (2013 and 2003).

In 2023, approximately 1.4 million students took the ACT, intermediate between the two earlier cohorts (1.2m and 1.8m). In 2003 and 2013, the average composite scores were virtually identical (20.8 and 20.9), and the subject scores differed by less than 0.3 point. However, the 2023 cohort didn’t do as well. Their average composite score was 19.5, and subject scores dropped by as much as 9%. In addition, there was a 21% decline — from the 2003/2013 highs — in the number of students meeting any of the College Readiness Benchmarks. As you might expect, these declines caused a lot of handwringing, and wrongheaded claims about testing biases. However, there is a more nuanced — and much more positive — story buried in the data.

First, it’s clear that a key reason (if not the key reason) for the 2023 decline is that this cohort took much less rigorous course loads than did students in the earlier two: In 2023, only 41% of students took what the ACT calls “Core or More,” four or more years of English and three or more years each of math, social studies, and natural science. In 2003 and 2013, 57% and 74% did so.

The effects of diminished academic rigor are clear in the data: Over all three cohorts, students who took Core or More scored an average of 11-19% higher on subject tests, and 14% higher overall than did students who took a less rigorous mix of courses. Note that these percentage increases are greater than the overall 2023 composite score decline (~6.5%) over which everyone is so concerned.

More importantly, however, taking Core or More was most beneficial for students who, historically, have fared poorly on the test. For instance, in 2023, the percentage of students self-identifying as Black/African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander who met at least three of the ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks was 100-150% higher for those who took Core or More than for those who did not. Similarly, 32-72% more students in the ACT’s other racial/ethnic categories met at least three of the four College Readiness Benchmarks if they took Core or More. In other words, rigorous coursework dramatically increases standardized test performance for all groups of students irrespective of race or ethnicity. Although this relationship between hard work and test performance should be a “no-brainer,” as they say, it doesn’t seem to enter mainstream conversations about education. I wonder why?

If one considers only average composite scores — as most people do — the performance ranking of the ACT’s ethnic/racial categories has remained unchanged for decades. For instance, in the three cohorts considered here, students identifying as Asian (or Asian-American/Pacific Islander in 2003), White, or Two or More Races (in 2013 and 2023) scored as much as 24% higher than their cohort’s overall average. In contrast, those identifying as Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Black/African-American scored as much as 18% below the average. These aggregated data are what’s used (erroneously) to claim that the ACT is ‘racially’ biased.

Of course, terms like “White", "Asian", "Hispanic, "Black", "Two or More Races,” and so on, do not designate actual ‘racial’ categories. None of these terms refers to an ethnically, culturally, or genetically homogeneous group of people. Nonetheless, they continue to be used as if they do. Consequently, as I’ve argued elsewhere, grouping scores by these arbitrary and anachronistic categories not only perpetuates misleading stereotypes, it hides a key predictor of ACT performance: “Student Post Secondary Aspirations.” The ACT reports these as a student’s plan to pursue a Graduate, Professional Level, Bachelor’s, Two-Year College, or Vocational-Technical degree after high school.

In 2003, only overall composite scores were reported in terms of student aspirations. Nonetheless, the data were amazing. Scores were 34% higher for students aspiring to a Graduate Degree versus those intending to pursue Voc-Tech, and the intermediate scores declined progressively between these two extremes. The very same pattern repeated in 2013 and 2023. More importantly, however, the composite scores of students in the top aspirational categories (Grad. Study, Prof. Level Deg., Bachelor’s Deg.) actually increased each decade by as much as 8%. This point also seems to be largely ignored by the mainstream press.

In 2006, the ACT began reporting scores in terms of both aspirations and ethnic/racial categories. Again, the results were remarkable. In 2013 and 2023, students in the four historically lowest performing groups (Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African American) who aspired to a Graduate or Professional degree outscored students in the historically highest performing groups (Asian, White, Two or More Races) who aspired to a Two-Year College or Voc-Tech degree by as much as 42%. In other words, aspirations were a far better predictor of student performance than were the ACT’s outmoded racial/ethnic categories.

So, despite declines in overall average performance from 2003/2013 to 2023, students who took more rigorous coursework — you know, worked harder — and had higher postgraduate aspirations not only improved, they outperformed other students irrespective of their race or ethnicity. In fact, in 2023, students who planned to pursue Graduate or Professional degrees outperformed their cohort’s average by as much as 41%, again, irrespective of race or ethnicity.

So, a simple — but accurate — analysis of the 2023 ACT results would be that hard-working, ambitious “Black”, “Hispanic”, “Pacific Islander”, and native American students outscored “Asian” and “White” students who took less rigorous course loads and had more modest aspirations.

Unfortunately, I’ve never seen that headline… Again, I wonder why.