Scores on Mississippi's most widely used college-entrance exam are higher this year at all but one high school in the Greenwood area.
The improvements on the ACT have come even as scores statewide declined slightly.
The largest gain was at J.Z. George High School in North Carrollton. Students there went from an average composite score of 16.7 in 2002 to 18.6 this year, right on the state average, which dropped 0.2 points from last year. A perfect ACT score is 36. The national average is 20.8.
Leflore County High School posted another big jump, scoring 15.6, up 1.5 points from 2002.
Pillow Academy once again led area high schools, meeting its composite score last year of 21.6. And Amanda Elzy had a apparently insignificant decline from 16.3 to 16.2.
Greenwood High's scores were up 0.6 points for a 17.9 composite average.
"It's not a dramatic jump. It's not where we need to be, but it's better than it was," Principal George Noflin said.
Noflin, who came to Greenwood High last year, says the school is now putting more emphasis on the ACT.
"We scheduled some days where our students remediated specifically on the ACT the week previous to taking the test," he said. "And before we did that, we sent teachers to some ACT training. … It trains teachers on information that is going to be on the ACT, and they share the information with our students."
That strategy is similar to the one used by Pillow Academy, which continues to have the top ACT scores among schools in the two counties. The school beat the state and national averages, partly by drilling its students the week before the test.
"We do that before the December test date, and we take a solid week," said Pillow's high school guidance counselor, Susan Walker. "In English class, the focus is on ACT English. In math class, the focus is on ACT math. In science, the focus is on science. And history focuses on reading."
But Pillow students' preparation for the ACT begins long before December of their senior year. The school hands out ACT prep books to all sophomores for their next three years, and students regularly take mock ACT exams. "We always have scores above the state average, and we pride ourselves in that," Walker said.
