MURRAY, KY - With a 21.3 overall composite, the Murray Independent School District score is ranked as the eighth highest district in the state among the state’s 174 school districts with the release of ACT test scores this week.
          
The benchmark scores tallied for the 44,516 Kentucky junior students who took the test last spring, indicate this year’s 108 Murray High seniors once again scored well above the state percentage of students meeting benchmark in the four content areas: English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science.   

Murray High School also achieved the highest score of any high school west of Elizabethtown, Ky.

The only schools scoring higher than Murray High School were three Louisville magnet schools, two Oldham County schools, four Northern Kentucky schools, two in Lexington, two in Eastern Kentucky, Model Lab School in Richmond and Elizabethtown High School.
 
Bob Rogers, MISD superintendent, said the MISD is extremely proud of this year’s senior class. “We’re proud of their performance on the ACT test last spring. A 21.3 composite is an excellent score—and I commend the students, their Murray Independent School District teachers, and their parents for continuing Murray High’s tradition of academic excellence.”
 
Eleanor Mills Spry, MISD assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said students are realizing the importance of rigorous coursework beginning in middle school and continuing through their high school career. “Scoring well on the ACT provides greater opportunities in postsecondary school and technical program acceptance as well as opportunities for scholarship monies to continue in their career study. Most of all, students realize they can do whatever they dream of doing because they are college and career ready.”
 
Teresa Speed, MHS principal, explained this year’s high ranking is once again the successful result of the culminating work of Murray High School teachers, students and parents. “We strive each day to improve in every area of our students’ college and career focus, while cheering them on in sports and extra-curricular activities,” she explained. “Our families work very hard to provide their children the best they can and we echo that in everything we do. Go Tigers!”
 
According to a release issued today by the Kentucky Board of Education, overall results from the 2012 administration of the ACT to Kentucky’s public school juniors and public school graduates show improvements in all subject areas. The overall composite scores for both juniors and graduating seniors increased slightly from 2011 to 2012.