KYLE MURPHYStaff Writer

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) released the ACT state results and participation rate for the graduating class of 2024 earlier this month, and Tullahoma City Schools (TCS) saw increases in participation and score improvement.

Per TDOE, thanks to the efforts by schools and districts to encourage student participation on the ACT, overall statewide participation rate for the 2024 graduating class was 99%, and the state average composite ACT score also increased from 19.0 in 2023 to 19.3 in 2024.

The ACT provides important measures to understand students’ college and career readiness and how Tennessee prepares the next generation to transition to postsecondary opportunities. Through Tennessee’s award-winning ACT Senior Retake program, the state offers public high school students the opportunity to take the ACT two times for free during normal school hours. 

Each year, the department releases statewide ACT results for the most recent graduating class representing each student’s highest ACT score. The 2023-24 graduating class’s ACT results are available on the department’s Data Downloads webpage.

“Tennessee strives to support every student in their college and career aspirations, including preparing them for the ACT assessment that can open up additional postsecondary scholarships and opportunities,” Commissioner of Education Lizzette Reynolds said. “We commend districts and schools for their collective effort in improving the average composite score across the state.”

For district highlights of the 2023-24 ACT results, 127 districts (98%) met the 95% ACT participation rate in 2024 compared to 129 districts (99%) in 2023. 

Locally, TCS demonstrated a 15.1 percentage point’s increase from 31.1% in 2023 to 46.2% in 2024. TCS also demonstrated significant growth in the percentage of students meeting the ACT benchmark, scoring at least a 21 on the ACT, among student groups from 2023 to 2024. According to the data, Black or African American TCS students demonstrated an 18.5 percentage point’s increase from 18.2% in 2023 to 36.7% in 2024.

TCS Director of Schools Dr. Catherine Stephens brought this news to the TCS Board of Education during its January meeting as part of her superintendent’s report.

“I wanted to give kudos to our THS and TVA students and their teachers for these successful outcomes,” Stephens said. “Our students demonstrated significant growth in the percentage of students meeting the ACT benchmark, scoring at least a 21 on the ACT from 2023 to 2024. The percentage change was 15.1% and was the third highest growth in percentage highlighted in the state’s press release.”

She also shared to the school board that the state average composite was 19.3 for ACT, while the TCS average composite was 20.3.

“I do want to lift up that composite from TCS went from a 19 in 2023 to a 20.3,” she said. “That is exceptional work.”

Stephens said the district knows it can continue to improve those results, and are actively working on improving those results.

“We are really excited about the positive changes and outcomes for ACT, the fact that the state acknowledged us in two different areas in their press release and we just simply wanted to celebrate that fact.”

Other statewide highlights of the 2023-24 ACT state results include:

• 78 districts (61%) had a rate of 99 percent or higher in 2024 compared to 75 districts in 2023.
• The statewide average ACT composite score increased slightly for the 2024 graduating cohort (19.3) in comparison to the 2023 (19.0) graduating cohort with growth observed for some student groups:
• Black/Hispanic/Native American students increased from 16.6 to 16.8 (0.2 points increase)
• Economically disadvantaged students increased from 16.3 to 16.6 (0.3 points increase)
• Students with disabilities increased from 14.7 to 14.9 (0.2 points increase)
• More than one third (37.7 percent) of the 2024 graduating cohort met the ACT benchmark, scoring at least a 21 on the ACT, with improvement observed for some student groups from last year to this year:
• Black/Hispanic/Native American students increased from 17.3 to 19.5% (2.2 percentage points increase)
• Economically disadvantaged students increased from 15.8 to 17.7%  (1.9 percentage points increase)
• Students with disabilities increased from 6.7 to 8.6% (1.9 percentage points increase)

ACT/SAT results serve as a nationally normed measure to indicate college and career readiness. Under Tennessee’s accountability systems, earning a score of 21 on the ACT or earning a score of 1060 on the SAT is one of the four pathways indicating that students are prepared for career and/or postsecondary education after high school.