by James A. Bacon Jr.

Some seemingly good news from the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE): Virginia’s college-bound students have shown steady improvement in their ACT college-readiness scores and significantly out-perform their peers nationally as ranked by the percentage of test takers who meet college-readiness benchmarks.

I say “seemingly” because the VDOE has shown a willingness to shamelessly spin data in the past. I don’t see any obvious signs of manipulation in the latest press release, but I don’t know enough to ascertain whether the data is being tortured or not.

“The upward trend in the performance of Virginia students on the ACT since 2012 corresponds with the implementation of college- and career-ready state standards and assessments in mathematics, language arts and science,” Board of Education President Billy K. Cannaday Jr. said in the press release. “The progress of students toward meeting these higher state expectations is reflected in the ACT.”

What seems especially encouraging is that Virginia scores have improved even as the percentage of high school graduates taking the test has increased. An estimated 30% of 2015 Virginia graduates took the ACT, up from 22% in 2010. (The pool of test takers includes public and private high school students as well as home schooled students.)

However, it is worth probing these results. The SAT remains the dominant college-admissions test. Not all college-bound students take the ACTs. I don’t know how the student profile of the ACT test taker may differ from the SAT test taker. If those most likely to take the ACTs are the best prepared academically, then it logically follows that enlarging the pool of test takers brings in students who are less prepared. If scores are improving despite this trend, the results appear to be all the more robust. Alternatively, if ACT test takers are participating because they are disappointed with their SAT results and they want an alternative test to present to college admissions offices, they may not represent the cream of the crop, with very different implications.

As the VDOE press release indicates, the College Board is expected to release its annual report on student achievement on SATs this September. If the SAT results match the ACT results, then something really good is going on. If not… you can draw your own conclusions.