Mississippi Department of Education Senior Student Representative Charlie Frugé leaned forward and comfortably began his presentation during the Oct. 19, 2023, MDE board meeting.
Board members perused the ACT-prep questions that Frugé had given them before the meeting while he directed their attention toward the practice test that reflected on the projection screen. He explained how he used the document in his free ACT Club and how students struggled with the content on the test. He told board members that he has noticed three groups of test-takers.
“The kids in group one … they are paying for the hitting coaches,” the Oxford High School student told the board. “They are sent out there with the big bats and big barrels, and that ACT is the same fastball down the middle every time. They know it’s coming, (and) they will hit a home run every time.”
“The kids in group two might have paid for a hitting coach with their parent’s money, or their school may have a hitting coach on staff. They are going to have a normal baseball bat, and they might hit a double,” Frugé continued. “But the kids in group three don’t have any help. They’re going to march out to home plate with their state-issued toothpick and try to get on base. They might get hit by a pitch, and they might get to second.”
Frugé posed the question to the board: How could the state upgrade its ACT-preparation practices from the state-issued toothpick to the big-barrel bat?
The ACT is a timed aptitude test that colleges and universities use to make entrance and placement decisions. The nonprofit organization, ACT, Inc., administers the multiple-choice assessment, and scores are also often used as a determinant of eligibility for numerous merit-based scholarships. The test is composed of four sections evaluating proficiency in English, mathematics, reading and scientific reasoning. Each section is scored individually, on a scale of 1 to 36, with the average of the sections constituting the overall composite score.
Nearly 1.4 million American students from the graduating class of 2023 took the test including 35,510 from