Results showed Berkeley County School District (BCSD) students outperformed students across the nation in each of the four subject areas tested on the ACT Aspire®: English, Reading, Writing and Math.
Berkeley County students also outperformed students across South Carolina in each grade level in the areas of English, Reading, Science and Social Studies, according to ACT Aspire® and SC PASS results.
The ACT Aspire® was administered in 48 states in various grades at public and private schools, replacing the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (PASS) in ELA, Mathematics and Writing. The SC PASS was administered to students in grades four through eight, assessing Social Studies and Science. While readiness, as defined by ASPIRE, does not equate to “on grade level”, students who score at and above benchmarks set by ASPIRE are on target for college readiness when they take the ACT® college readiness assessment in the 11th or 12th grade.
Berkeley County School District boasts 83 students who received maximum scale ACT ASPIRE scores. “Our students, teachers and principals are to be commended for what they have accomplished, considering the mid-year switch from Smarter Balanced to the ASPIRE assessment,” said Berkeley County School District Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Kevin O’Gorman.
For the first time, all 11th grade students in the state took the ACT and WorkKeys assessments. The performance of 11th grade students on the ACT was similar to ACT results in the past for seniors in that students fell just below the state on their composite score. However, these 11th grade students outperformed both the national and state averages on the WorkKeys assessment, with 89.4 percent of 11th graders in Berkeley County qualifying for a National Career Ready Certificate.
Additionally, five BCSD students were included on the WorkKeys Platinum roster. These WorkKeys results are more in line with the performance schools and officials are seeing in grades three through eight. Results indicate that Berkeley County students are prepared for the work force right now. The remaining 10.6 percent will have an opportunity during their senior year to earn that credential.
“Considering this was a ‘first look’ on many levels as to how our students stacked up against students across the nation, as opposed to just South Carolina, I couldn’t be more pleased with the results,” said O’Gorman.
