Our headline comes from the president of the Center on Education Policy, Jack Jennings, who was quoted on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal.
His comment is in the context of the newest release of ACT scores, which show that only 1 out of 4 graduates in 2010 will be able to concurrently meet college benchmarks in English, reading, math, and science.
The College Readiness Benchmark “is the minimum score needed on an ACT subject-area test to indicate a 50% chance of obtaining a B or higher or about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in the corresponding first-year credit-bearing college course.”
This, combined with a steady decline in youth participation in the workforce, is ample reminder that education is steadily becoming “the economic issue of our time.”
The details on the 2010 ACT results are here, and the state score cards can be found here (though not all states in the union are represented).
Below is chart from the WSJ story.
