Louisiana's average score falls on ACT college entrance exam

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's high school student performance on the ACT college readiness test declined in the latest scores and remains below the national average.

Figures released Wednesday by the Iowa group that administers the test show the latest average composite score among all states was 20.8 for the 2018 high school graduating class.

Louisiana's average was 19.2 , down from 19.5 a year earlier.

The test measures how students perform in English, reading, math and science. A perfect score is 36.

In 20 states where all or nearly all high school graduates took the ACT, 13 states had a higher average score than Louisiana. Minnesota led with a 21.3 average.

In Louisiana, 53 percent of graduates were deemed to meet the English readiness benchmark, while only a quarter met science and math benchmarks.