The Ames School Board has reacted to an assessment that students are not prepared for college. The board decided to provide resources to ensure students are better prepared for higher-level curriculums.

Last week, the Iowa Department of Education announced more improvement is needed in high school achievement. According to ACT.org, Iowa high school students have not improved their composite score of 22 for the past five years.

On Monday, the board met to discuss its proposed goals for the upcoming school year. One of the board’s goals is to develop and maintain policies that support high levels of student achievement.

Board member Gloria Symons said the entire state is looking at high school reform, an issue addressed on the board’s agenda for the upcoming year.

Achievement is most visible through assessment, which gets reported through the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and other tests the district uses, she said. There is also an evaluation process for teachers.

An ACT report distributed at the board’s Monday meeting shows the Ames Community School District scored higher than the state average in all areas, attaining a 25.3 composite score – a score three tenths higher than last year’s composite.

“Ames always does very well on the ACTs and ITBSs,” Symons said.

The board has done a lot of work during the past three years to make sure they have benchmarks and a curriculum that supports what they want to teach and an assessment that measures curriculum, she said.

Ames Community School District Superintendent Ray Richardson agrees with the state’s focus on high school reform.

“I’m concerned that our academic level and expectations, which we’re not going to lower, are so high that it puts pressure on those students in the lower percentile,” he said.

Richardson said the size of Ames’ school district allows teachers to more easily identify students who could improve academically and work with them individually.

Also on the ACT assessment test, students are asked about their preferences for institutions of higher education.

According to the ACT Web site, the Regent universities were ranked the top three — Iowa State was ranked second, below the University of Iowa but above the University of Northern Iowa.

Iowa State received just over 8,000 total preferences from the 2005 ACT-tested graduates and of those, more than 3,000 chose Iowa State as their first preference.