Lafayette Parish, GEAR UP, and Mastery Prep have entered into a partnership to implement a comprehensive ACT prep program in order to improve student performance on the ACT and ACT WorkKeys tests. The Lafayette Parish composite average on ACT this year was 19.9, slightly dropping from 20 last year. Earlier this year, the Louisiana Department of Education ranked Lafayette Parish 14th in the state. The ultimate goal of the program is to reach an average composite score of 21, which would put the district among the top 10 in the state.
Lafayette Parish and GEAR UP have purchased materials and resources from Mastery Prep. Not only will Mastery Prep provide the materials for our efforts, they will also provide support through face to face professional development, webinars, onsite visits, email tips and announcements, and online support of electronic versions of their products.
The goal of the partnership is to develop a comprehensive and systematic delivery of instruction and support to meet the needs of all the students preparing to take the ACT and ACT WorkKeys. The program provides a coherent and aligned system which will incrementally improve thinking skills and mastery of content over time so each student can perform his or her best. The program is not confined to high schools. It reaches down to the middle school grades as well.
Mastery Prep elements include ACT Mastery Advanced, ACT Mastery Basic, ACT Essentials, ACT Elements, and MasteryKeys. ACT Advanced Prep is designed to help students who are projected to score an ACT composite score of 22 or more. ACT Mastery Prep is designed to help students who are projected to score an ACT composite score of 15-21. The state’s accountability benchmark for ACT is a composite score of 18. ACT Essentials is designed to help freshmen and sophomore students improve their problem solving skills and mastery of the content to score above the benchmark of
18. ACT Elements is the ACT Prep Bellringers program that is delivered electronically online to middle school students and high school students who need to master the fundamental skills. MasteryKeys is designed to help Career Diploma students and seniors who have not scored an ACT Composite of 18 develop the abilities to earn a Silver WorkKeys Certificate. A Silver Certificate is equivalent to an ACT Composite of 18 in the ACT Index.