State News Roundup: High school students have some of the top ACT scores in the nation
Wisconsin News-- Wisconsin high school students continue to have some of the nation’s top scores in the A-C-T college entrance exam – but the state’s average was the lowest since 1996.
Wisconsin high school students continue to have some of the nation’s top scores in the A-C-T college entrance exam – but the state’s average was the lowest since 1996. Wisconsin’s average score was 22-point-one on the 36-point exam given during the last school year. That’s tied with neighboring Iowa for second place among the 28 states where at least half the students take the A-C-T. But Wisconsin’s score was a tenth-of-a-point lower than the previous year. And it tied the 1996 score which was the lowest until now. One reason is that more youngsters are taking the A-C-T exam, even if they don’t plan on going to college. The Milwaukee Public Schools started making all juniors take the A-C-T in 2010, to determine the percentage of students who are ready for college. Milwaukee’s average score went down that year. It rose slightly in 2011 – but the city’s score dropped one-tenth-of-a-point this year to 15-point-nine. West Bend is also among the district requiring students to take the A-C-T. State officials said 71-percent of last spring’s graduates took the exam. That was just over 47-thousand-500 students, about the same as the previous year.
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Wisconsin officials have seen the light. And as a result, folks in Superior and Duluth will get to keep what they call a local icon – a lighted-up Blatnik Bridge at night between the two cities. Wisconsin and Minnesota share the costs of maintaining the Blatnik Bridge, a number of the old decorative lights have been rusting and falling. But officials in Madison initially balked at the new lights, as part of a major construction project on the bridge. Some Wisconsin officials said they could no longer afford features that don’t have a real safety purpose. But Duluth-Superior officials and residents told Madison that the bridge lights are a landmark. Minnesota State Senator Roger Reinert said people think of the Twin Ports as one, and the Blatnik is the bridge that quote, “ties us together.” The Wisconsin D-O-T provided some lighting options, along with designers in Minnesota – and they’ll be presented at a public open house next Wednesday night in Duluth. One proposal would protect the lights better from rust, weather, and vehicle damage. The new lights will go in by the time the project is scheduled to be finished in the fall of next year.
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Defective gasoline that was recalled by B-P was sold in Milwaukee and suburban Chicago the past two days before sales were finally stopped. When B-P announced the recall on Monday, the company said it was limited to gas stations in northwest Indiana. But spokesman Scott Dean said tankers delivered some of the bad fuel to northeast Illinois and southeast Wisconsin – and it included all three major grades from regular-to-premium. Dean said over five-thousand customers called B-P to say they needed car repairs, because the gasoline had high levels of polymeric residues. More information is available on the Web at BP Response-Dot-Com.
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A Marinette man died yesterday, after he was pulled from the Menominee River at the Wisconsin-Michigan border. Rescuers were called on Monday night, after three teenage girls heard calls for help on the Michigan side of the river near a marina in Menominee. It was dark at the time, and the girls said they could not see anybody. Rescuers quickly found the 34-year-old man, and they took him to a hospital in Green Bay where he died. The victim’s name was not immediately released.
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A man was killed, and a woman was seriously hurt, after their vehicle crashed on the Highway 41 expressway near Slinger in Washington County. Sheriff’s deputies said the vehicle was going south when it veered into a grassy median and rolled over in the opposite lanes. It happened just after 3:20 yesterday afternoon. The driver and a passenger were ejected. They were flown to a Milwaukee hospital where the man died, and the woman was treated for serious injuries. Their names were not immediately released. Highway 41 in the Slinger area was closed or restricted for two-and-a-half hours, so crews could clean up and investigate the mishap. A re-construction unit is still trying to determine what caused the crash.
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