No Change in SAT Scores
The College Board, which administers the SAT test, recently released a breakdown of this year’s results. Some 1.6 million high school graduates took it this year. And, how did the class of 2010 fare? Exactly the same as the class of 2009. The average total SAT score was 1,509 points out of a possible total of 2,400 — the same as last year, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Head Count blog reports.
Over the last decade, average math scores have inched up two points, while average critical reading skills have declined by four points. Students who took “core curricula” scored, on average, 151 points higher than those who didn’t. College Board President Gaston Caperton said, in a statement: “Students who take more rigorous courses in high school are more prepared to succeed in college and beyond.” He told USA Today that the reason so many students fail to complete their college degrees is because too many are not properly prepared by their high school.
The scores showed no progress in closing racial and ethnic score gaps, and indeed some gaps widened. Since 2006, scores of white students dipped by 2 points, but scores of black students dropped by 14, the blog notes. Meanwhile, Asian students continue to post the biggest average increases in scores, USA Today says, and the highest scores were earned by students from wealthy families.
Filed under: K-12 Education News
Tags: Research on Learning, Testing
