The Nation Is Making No Progress in Closing the Racial Gap in Standardized Test Scores

In a year when many test dates were postponed or canceled due to the global pandemic, more than 1.6 million members of the 2020 graduate class of high school seniors took the ACT college entrance examination.

The average score on the ACT dropped to 20.6 on a scale of 1 to 36. This was the lowest average score in a decade. For the third year in a row, the average score for African American students dropped. This year, the average score was 16.7. The average score for Whites also dropped to 22.0.

Based on score results, the American College Testing organization calculates the percentage of students who took the ACT test who are adequately prepared to take on a college-level curriculum. In 2020, 30 percent of Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in English, compared to 69 percent of Whites. In mathematics, only 12 percent of Blacks were rated college-ready compared to 46 percent of Whites. In science, ACT data shows 12 percent of Blacks were ready for college-level courses compared to 45 percent of Whites. In reading, 19 percent of Blacks achieved the minimal benchmark for college readiness compared to 54 percent of Whites.

The most striking statistic is that only 4 percent of all Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in all four areas of English, mathematics, science, and reading. Whites were more than six times as likely as Blacks to be prepared for college-level work in all four areas.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. The gap will never even begin to close until the overwhelming majority of black households have two parents, not one, and black parenting skills start to look more like white parenting skills.

    • I agree with everything you just said. We must fight to keep our black household families together for the sake of our future black generations. For prosperity, wealth and advancement.

      • I think your right on this one. In the 1960’s, the single motherhood rate in the black community was 20%. Today it’s around 75%. Is America more racist now then it was in the 1960’s? I would think not. The reason for black failure has been because the family unit has been replaced with the state. Which is something I wouldn’t want the white community to suffer through. Which is why we must fight to keep our white households and families together for the sake of our future white generations. For prosperity, wealth and advancement.

        • Or maybe there are so many female-headed households at least in part because of the inordinately(unjustifiable) high rate of black men in prison?

  2. This trend won’t stop because black culture seems to take on an “anti-white” attitude. If speaking english correctly and enunciating words properly is deemed “white”, blacks will naturally avoid it. A person can “sound white”. A person can “dress white”. It’s a toxic and self destructive pattern of behavior that weakens population, because it promotes degeneracy in the name of cultural identity. The cultural Marxism pushing group identity politics today isn’t helping either.

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