States With ACT Mandate See Minority Performance on the Rise: ...Using the six states as a base, academics are trying to assess how using the ACT test affects students and schools. Data is incomplete, but trends include improved performance by African-American or Hispanic students who generally score lower than Whites or Asian-Americans. Some believe that more students tend to go to college after taking the ACT, but the program’s critics claim that teachers end up teaching the ACT test and not real content.The ACT, developed by ACT, Inc. in Iowa City, Iowa, measures competence in English, mathematics, scientific reasoning and reading. It came about to help assess the hordes of veterans who returned from World War II with college aspirations. Popular in the Midwest and parts of the South, the ACT competes with the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which dates to the 1920s and tends to be used for college admission on the East and West coasts.
