South Dakota students outpace neighbors on ACT scores again
Test to become mandatory for high schoolers in 2026
South Dakota’s graduating class of 2024 scored an average overall ACT score of 21.1, surpassing the national average by nearly two points and ranking highest among neighboring states.
The ACT, a standardized test used for college admissions in the United States for decades, assesses students’ overall skills in English, mathematics, reading and science.
In South Dakota, 58 percent of 2024 graduates took the ACT. Among those with a preferred college location, nearly three-quarters indicated they would stay in-state for their post-high school education.
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“These numbers indicate that schools in South Dakota are doing a solid job of preparing students to attend college,” South Dakota Education Secretary Joe Graves said. “The fact that an overwhelming majority of our graduating seniors are electing to attend college in the state speaks to the quality of postsecondary education in South Dakota, and to the opportunities available to students after they graduate.”
South Dakota’s average score of 21.1 matches last year’s mark. Of the 6,097 students who took the test, seven earned a perfect score of 36. And 28 percent of test-takers met college readiness benchmarks in all four subject areas, compared to just 20 percent nationally. Health sciences and technology ranked as the most common planned field of study for students, followed closely by business.
The national average ACT score this year was 19.4. South Dakota’s highest in the last five years was in 2020, when the average score was 21.7.
While the ACT remains optional for students pursuing higher education here, it will become mandatory for all South Dakota juniors in 2026, replacing existing state assessment tests.
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Maggie--let's take a look at the states we outperformed: Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wyoming, Arizona, Montana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Utah, North Dakota, Ohio, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Hawaii, Iowa, Florida, South Carolina, West Virginia, Texas, Alaska, New Mexico, Oregon. State's outperforming us include: New Jersey, Colorado, New York, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, California, Delaware, Maine. We spend a little over 29% of our state's budget (680 million) on state assistance to schools and local governments. I'm not as familiar as you are with the state's budget, so I don't know what all that funds--it does appear that states who spend less on education generally don't perform as well. That aside, the fact of the matter is that our secondary schools are not college prep schools. Whether they should be or not is debatable, but I assume many SD high school students attend technical colleges that don't require an ACT score for entrance. I know you're a critic of our public schools, and we'd all like our students to perform better, but the Republican solution is often to cut public school funding, shift public dollars to private institutions, home school more students where they are not required to take assessment tests. If the state of our education is truly pathetic, doesn't it have to be partly the responsibility of the state's leadership over the past several decades?
Here again, Graves comparing performance, to set low standards for our students rather than culpability for his performance. Whoever hired him needs to be gone as well.