While ACT scores nationally remained the same and scores across Kansas slightly declined, Lawrence students improved their scores for the 2008-2009 school year.

Last year, 530 students at both Lawrence High and Free State High took the ACT test, which is scored on a scale of 1 to 36.

The Lawrence average went from 23.3 in 2007-2008 to 23.5. Lawrence High’s average score was 23.2, while Free State’s average was 23.7. The national average score is 21.1; the Kansas average is 21.9

“I think it is verification of the efforts that we’ve made in our school improvement process recently, focusing on individual students,” Superintendent Rick Doll said. “I think it maintains our high tradition, our strong tradition of preparing kids for post-secondary school.”

The ACT areas include English, math, reading and science. It’s designed to measure the skills needed for a student’s first year in college.

“It’s the best indicator we have of how well we are preparing kids. Obviously, we show pretty favorably when compared to others,” Doll said. “We congratulate our kids not only on their scores, but for taking a rigorous curriculum.”