Study: Few eighth-graders on track for college success

? Fewer than two in 10 of the nation’s eighth-graders are on track to be academically prepared for college, and high school may be too late to bring them up to speed, according to a study released Wednesday.

The report found that how students fare in middle school is a leading predictor of their ability to succeed in college or the workplace after high school. Research by Iowa City-based ACT suggests that students who are not academically prepared going into high school are unlikely to make up ground even with rigorous schooling and academic help. The trend cut across demographic and economic lines.

“What we’re saying is college and career readiness is a process that includes high school but is not exclusively a high school issue. It’s a K-12 issue,” said Cyndie Schmeiser, president of ACT’s education division.

The findings reinforce a recent study of Chicago Public Schools students. The University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research looked at the correlation between how eighth-graders fared on the state’s exams and how they performed three years later on the ACT. The report found that students who earned average scores in eighth grade had only a one-in-four chance of scoring high enough on the ACT to go to college — typically considered at least a 20 out of 36 points.

“We should be looking all the way back. If we want kids to be at a certain level in grade 12 or 11, where do we need them to be in middle school or elementary school?” said John Easton, executive director of the consortium.

His research found that regardless of their achievement level in middle school, students did benefit from attending high schools with strong academics and challenging course work.

“I don’t want to take high schools off the hook entirely, but on the other hand, it’s hard for high schools to deal with severely underprepared kids,” Easton said.

The ACT report tracked 216,000 teenagers nationwide who completed the college-entrance exam and its two precursor tests given in grades 8 and 10. Those involved graduated in 2005 and 2006. The sample did not include teenagers who left high school, leading Schmeiser to call the findings a “best-case scenario.”

Only students who scored high enough on the eighth-grade exam to reach academic targets set in reading, English, math and science typically went on to earn high enough marks on the ACT as juniors to be considered ready for college in all four areas. In other words, middle school students who were academically prepared for high school were more likely to be academically prepared for college.