Statewide ACT Senior Retake is Saturday, October 22

The statewide ACT Senior Retake will be Saturday, October 22 for students who met the September 16 registration deadline.
The retake provides every eligible high school senior, meaning any public school student who took the ACT as a junior, the ability to retake the ACT free of charge, regardless of socioeconomic status.
With more Tennessee students than ever before taking the ACT, Tennessee public high school students this year held steady at a 19.4 average score, whereas nationally scores declined as more students participated. For each subject area, scores of Tennessee public school students either increased slightly or remained constant, with no score declining. Nearly 1,300 more Tennessee public school students became eligible for the HOPE scholarship in 2016 by achieving composite scores of 21 or higher. Additionally, Tennessee improved its national standing in 2016 among the 18 states that require students to take the ACT, climbing to seventh in the nation when looking at the average composite of both public and private school students. In 2015, Tennessee ranked eighth among the then-13 states that required the college readiness assessment.
“Our Districts ACT score was up from a composite of 17.7 to an 18.1 this year with Science and Reading being our highest scoring tested areas and math being our lowest,” said Lisa Cripps, Supervisor of Instruction for grades 7-12 in DeKalb County.
“We are continuing to help our students become better prepared for the ACT and College by the addition of an online ACT prep class and utilizing a state ACT readiness pilot. We have great hopes that our senior class will increase their scores by taking part in this ACT retake opportunity. I want to thank the DCHS Senior parents and high school counselor Lori Myrick for their efforts in getting our students registered for their first ever ACT retake opportunity,” added Cripps.
Tennessee’s historical ACT data indicate that students who retake the ACT typically increase their composite score by one to three points. This increase in ACT scores could translate into thousands more students meeting the composite score requirement of a 21 for the HOPE scholarship and avoiding remediation courses once they enter a postsecondary institution. Increasing the percentage of students who graduate high school with improved ACT composite and benchmark scores will allow for more students to start their next phase in life on the pathways necessary for success.
“Allowing students an additional opportunity to show what they know by retaking the ACT can expand the possibilities for our students’ futures,” Education Commissioner Candice McQueen said. “Our strategic plan, Tennessee Succeeds, lays out a firm goal, that the average ACT score in Tennessee will be a 21 by 2020, indicating that our students are graduating high school ready for college and career.”
All eligible students will have the option of retaking the ACT on the national test date of Saturday, Oct. 22. The registration deadline for this national test date was Friday, Sept. 16.
The recommendation to allow for a retake of the ACT or SAT for all students came as a result of the first convening of the Assessment Task Force in 2015. The task force developed a set of principles and recommendations, housed in a task force report, to guide the work of the state, districts, and schools.
This then led to the Tennessee Student Assessment Transparency Act of 2016, sponsored by Senator Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, and Representative Kevin Brooks, R-Cleveland, in which the General Assembly approved for each student who took a postsecondary readiness assessment—like the ACT—as a high school junior the opportunity to retake it as a senior free of cost.