Burlington Data Questions

One important piece of data that most are not aware of is not all states require the ACT to be taken by all students as the state assessment. Wisconsin is one of the FEW states that require all students to take the ACT plus Writing.

This is an important fact if you are looking to compare Wisconsin schools to schools across the nation as most states do not require students take the ACT plus Writing. So, when looking at assessment data it is important to note that you are comparing ALL students in Wisconsin (or Burlington) to only a portion of students in other states (or schools). Therefore, Wisconsin schools are not going to look good in national data comparisons - UNLESS you look at only other states that also require the ACT.

Here is data that is NON-BASD data to look at in regards to national ACT data:

https://horizoneducation.com/blog/average-act-scores-by-state

Let's explain what this data is telling us in a little more detail.

Notice in the image below (which is from the link above) only 7 states require all juniors in public schools to take the ACT plus writing - Wisconsin is one of those 7 states. This is a very important piece of data because other states that do not require the ACT will appear to have a much higher ACT score than Wisconsin but it is very important to look at the percentage of students who took the ACT first and foremost.

Additionally, the image below is a section of the data found on the link provided above.

What is important to note in this data is the second and third column. The 2nd column indicates if the state requires the ACT as a state. The data is listed in alphabetical order by state. After looking at column 2 - "Is the ACT Required?" - it is important to then look at the "Percent of Graduates Tested" (column 3) as well prior to looking at the "Average Composite Score".

For example, Alabama is a state that requires the ACT and has 100% of the students in the state tested. The average ACT score for Alabama is 18.0. This appears to be much lower than Alaska's overall composite of 19.9, however, Alaska does not require the ACT and only 13% of all juniors in Alaska took the ACT. Most likely, college bound students. Whereas, in Alaska ALL students had to take the ACT.

You might look at California as well. California appears to be really doing an amazing job with an "Average Composite Score" of 26.5. However, only 3% of the students in California took the ACT. This is very important data to analyze as it is not apples to apples comparison data. Which then causes national data to misinform the public about overall state, district, and school data across the nation. You cannot compare California's ACT score to Alabama's ACT score as one requires the ACT and tested all students and the other does not require the ACT and only tested 3% of their students.

Here is the link (again) to the full data again to also see where Wisconsin falls: https://horizoneducation.com/blog/average-act-scores-by-state

An image is below where you can see Wisconsin's data.

You will notice Wisconsin requires the ACT and that 94% of all students in Wisconsin took the ACT. From a quick glance it looks like Virginia within this list of 6 states has the best overall scores based on the overall ACT composite. However, if you really analyze the data further you will notice Virginia only had 8% of their students take the ACT. Wisconsin had 94% take the ACT (because it is required). Also, you should notice only two states in this list of 6 require the ACT - Wisconsin and Wyoming.

If Wisconsin, or Burlington, would only have to test 8% of our students (like Virginia) we would have a much different story to tell in comparison to other states across the nation. However, our state requires all students to take the ACT, therefore, you should not compare Wisconsin to the rest of the nation.

This comparison is natural to want to do, even on the site provided they state the "Top Performers" in the nation (image below). Washington, D.C (District of Columbia) is said to have the highest average composite score at 26.7 but it is NOT required for all students to take the ACT - only 17% of all juniors took the ACT.

California (3%), Connecticut (8%), and Massachusetts (7%) are also noted as "Top Performers" in this data. None of them require the ACT to be taken. The percentages behind each state is the percent of students who took the ACT.

Below is another link that is NON-BASD data about the ACT. What is interesting to look at with the way this data is set up is with column 2 - "% of graduates tested". This data lists the states in order with 100% of students tested listed first down to 2% of students tested listed last.

When reading the little paragraph above the data they state it is "best practice" to examine a cohort of states with similar percentages of tested graduates.

ACT suggests looking at states with 75% to 100% of students tested as a "cohort". When looking at the data that way Wisconsin has the 4th highest average ACT composite amongst the group of states with 75% or more students tested. When you look at the % of students at benchmark Wisconsin fairs well within this set of states. If you made the cut off of data to look at those with 90% of students tested or more Wisconsin then has the 2nd highest average ACT composite (19.4) and Montana is at (19.5).

Then, let's compare Burlington to Wisconsin. Burlington's average ACT composite is 20.5 where the state's average is 19.4 - noting that all students are required to take the ACT.

Below is data showing where BASD falls in the overall ACT composite in comparison to neighboring communities.

Additionally, there was a question about Advanced Placement (AP) data. This is one area that, as a district, we have been working to increase. AP courses are classes that students can take at the high school level that would like the ability to earn college credit while attending high school. Here is the link to WISE Dash Public which is where state data is collected to analyze at the state level.

https://wisedash.dpi.wi.gov/Dashboard/dashboard/16545?filtersetId=b7975c00-e2f7-44f9-98f1-f8f370d2bfc3

This link shows you the percent of students who passed at least 1 AP Exam at Burlington High School. Not all students who are in AP classes have to take an AP exam, just students who are wanting the ability to receive college credit take the AP exam in the spring. A student has to score a 3 or higher for them to receive college credit. You can use the "filter" button to look at past years, which we did and have listed below:

2023-2024: 81%

2022-2023: 70.2%

2021-2022: 68.9%

All of this data can be found on WISE Dash Public. This is NON-BASD data.

We appreciate the communities questions as we continue to improve communication, understanding, and transparency for and with the community.