Posted on 08/28/2007 9:53:35 AM PDT by Teacher317
Average SAT scores at lowest since 1999 By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer
The class of 2007 averaged the lowest math and reading SAT scores since 1999, the College Board reported Tuesday.
Last spring's high school seniors scored on average 502, out of a possible 800 points, on the critical reading section of the country's most popular college entrance exam, down from 503 for the class of 2006. Math scores fell three points from 518 to 515.
The declines follow a seven-point drop last year for the first class to take a lengthened and redesigned SAT, which included higher-level math questions and eliminated analogies. The College Board, which owns the exam, insisted the new exam wasn't harder and attributed last year's drop to fewer students taking it a second time. Students typically fare about 30 points better when they take the exam again.
The College Board's report Tuesday noted that a record number of students — just short of 1.5 million — took the test. The cohort of test-takers also was the most diverse ever, with minority students accounting for 39 percent: There has been a persistent gap between the scores of whites and the two largest U.S. minority groups, Hispanics and blacks.
In New York, 89 percent of students took the exam, up from 88 percent last year. Maine recently became the first state to use the SAT to meet its Grade 11 assessment requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and 100 percent of students took the exam there, compared to about three-quarters in the class of 2006.
"They have taken a very progressive stand in trying to get more and more students to go to college," College Board President Gaston Caperton said of Maine at a news conference Tuesday morning. "The larger the population you get to take an examination, it obviously knocks down the scores."
The number of black students taking the SAT rose 6 percent, and the number of test-takers calling themselves "Other Hispanic, Latino or Latin American" (a group that does not include Puerto Ricans or Mexican Americans) rose more than 25 percent.
Average scores also slipped from 497 to 494 on the writing portion of the SAT, which debuted with the class of 2006. Many colleges are waiting to see results from the first few years of data on the writing exam before determining how to use it.
Figures released earlier this month on the rival ACT exam showed a slight increase — from 21.1 last year to 21.2, on a scale of 1 to 36 — for the class of 2007.
The SAT has historically been more popular on the East and West coasts, while the ACT has been more popular in the Midwest and inland western states. But more and more students are taking both exams to try to improve their college resumes.
Has Miss Teen South Carolina taken any of these tests?
But didn’t they change the test? You can’t really compare if the test has significantly changed.
Wow, since 1999! That’s hugh and very series.
Please explain to me the disconnect between the SAT scoring/test of older times, i.e, the 60s and 70s, and the ones of today. - Apparently, there is one.
1100 board scores were pretty good results back then, and 1300 was damn near genius.
LOL! I almost spit my pretzels out.
Miss Teen South Carolina is a doooooooooooooope. I heard a recording of her speaking, and I said to myself, “How can somebody be so dull?”
Didn’t they double the score for the SAT? Top score is now 2600? Or did they do away with that?
Yes, you can compare; that’s what they do, make comparisons, and they have correlated for those changes.
Unfortunately, I *think* what they’ve done is to try to make it easier...
Frankly, I blame global warming.
Miss Teen South Carolina doesn’t need to take a test, she passes in my book.
Yet, Miss Teen scored above average on the new diversity SAT
It musts be Bush’s fault. /sarc
If the tests have changed they’re usually
skewed upward. This was done with the ACT exams.
It’s a different test, isn’t it? If it is, why would the scores be the same?
“Average” is for liberal demagogues.
The median tells a much more truthful story... which - oh look! The author completely left that out of the article.
Shocking.
I thought it was the ‘Electronics of 2007 Exam’.
Strange how results of the Asian minority are conspicuously left out of this article. Maybe they won’t fit the agenda.
OK, here’s a simple explanation for dropping average scores:
The “average score” is simply the average of all those taking the test.
If in years past only those who know for sure they’re going to a 4-year college take the test, you’d very likely have a considerably higher average score than if today, for example, almost everyone takes the test.
Looked at another way, if you have group that typically scores much lower, and now a greater percent of test-takers come from that group, what do you suppose this will do to the average score?
(No, that question is not on the SAT)
OOOPS! What happened to my brain? Vouchers and school choice have not been implemented... Uh, must be lack of funding to public education... We need to outlaw private schools and home-schooling now before any more children are harmed by learning reading writing and arithmetic.
That's my sarcasm and I'm stickin to it!
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