California's White High School Students Outperform Latinos on College Entry Exams

California's Latino and white high school students continue to perform quite differently on college entry examinations. For the last four years, performance gaps on ACT college entrance examinations have persisted between the two groups, with Latinos on the lower end of the scoring spectrum, according to new data.

California's population of young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 is 47 percent Latino and 31 percent white. The percentage of student test takers by race doesn't quite mirror the percentage of young people in the state: 38 percent of California's test takers were Latino, and 28 percent were non-Latino. Latino youth may represent a larger chunk of test takers, but college readiness favors non-Latino whites.

Experts have long expressed concern about this enduring trend, hoping that a segment of self-motivated Hispanic college-seekers would help to narrow the wide gap.

The report also showed that California students outperformed the national average. Twenty-eight percent of students nationwide met all four ACT benchmarks, compared to 37 percent of California's teens who took the test, indicating that more young Californians are likely to achieve college success. California's students are some of the highest-performing students in the nation. The maximum score for the ACT is 36; the average score in California was 22.5 and 21 nationwide.

Nonetheless, the gap between non-Latino white and Latino students in California has been stagnant since 2011. Since then, there has been a perpetual achievement gap of at least 40 percent. Twenty-five percent of Latino test takers met three or more ACT target in 2011, compared to a whopping 69 percent of non-Latino whites. Four years later, 28 percent of Latinos met the same target, compared to 70 of whites. In the areas of reading, math, English and science, white test takers outstripped Latinos by 37 to 39 percent.

Twice as many students in California take the SAT than the ACT, which is far more popular in the Midwest. Across the nation, 23 percent of student test takers came from families generating $36,000 or less each year. Poverty can be a challenge to education, provoking educational disparities. However, educational disparities are a combination of income inequalities and racial inequality. Correcting these challenges is the only way to narrow gaps and increase scores. Its scores measure probability, and it's designed to get students to college.