The Michigan Department of Education has released the results of the Michigan Merit Exam.
All Michigan high school juniors take the test in the spring to see how well-prepared they are for college. The MME tests students in reading, writing, math, science and social studies.
Students' math, science and writing scores inched up over last year, but scores in social studies and reading went down.
Martin Ackley, a spokesperon for the Department of Education, prefers to look at trends when it comes to test results, not just year-to-year data. He says he is "encouraged" student scores have been trending upward over the past five years, but he says the results "aren't where they need to be overall. We’d like to see them obviously higher than they are now."
About 109,000 students took this year’s exam, nearly half of whom tested not proficient in writing and math.
The class that just took the Merit Exam is the second group of students required to complete Michigan’s rigorous high school graduation requirements.
Students also take the ACT college entrance exam as part of the MME. This year's juniors scored roughly the same on the ACT composite as last year's students: 19.33 (out of 36) in 2011 compared to 19.3 in 2010.
