The state's ACT scores are down in nearly all categories among all high school juniors, according to a new study by Wisconsin Policy Forum.

"I'm concerned because the score on the ACT is so important in their lives as far as getting into the college of their choice or even getting into college at all, so the scores are important,” said Director of the Northwest Reading Clinic, Ruth Harris.

The study analyzed ACT data collected by DPI since it began requiring all high school juniors to take the ACT in 2014. It states only 29.2 percent of students are meeting the college readiness mark in math during the 2019-19 school year. It had hovered around 35 percent since the 2014-15 school year with some fluctuations.

In science, only 31 percent are meeting the mark during the 2018-19 school year, for English just under half of all students, 48.7 percent met the benchmark to be considered college ready.

Wisconsin’s state average composite score was 19.6 for 2018-19, which is down from the state average of 19.8 the year before, and 20 in 2014-15.

Read the Wisconsin Policy Forum study,

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"I don't know that the students are getting as much of the memorization of math that they used to, they can use their calculator so sometimes that makes them not have to think of the broad concepts, they just plug it into their calculator,” Harris said.

Harris hosted an ACT workshop on Sunday to give students some tips and tricks for taking the test.

"On the English test if there are two right answers, you count the number of words in the two right answers and whichever one has the fewest words is right 100% of the time,” She said. "The most common answer is B on all of the tests except math which is C. That just doesn't apply to other tests."

Harris says the test is not an actual measure of preparedness for college.

"I work with students at the northwest reading clinic who have taken the test and have not done well. Many of whom have excellent grade point averages, sometimes even 4.0, good work ethic and don't do well on the test. I think the format of the test and the test strategies that need to be done are unlike any other test really give less of a picture of their total ability than a normal test."

There is some good news. The study found in 19 states where at least 98 percent of graduates took the ACT exam, Wisconsin graduates were second only to Minnesota in their composite scores and college readiness.