SAT scores dip for high school class of 2009
SAT scores dip for high school class of 2009
Through the early 1990s and early 2000s, average scores on the SAT college entrance exam moved steadily upward. Now, for the last five years, they've been drifting back down. The reason? Unlike on the multiple-choice sections of the test itself, there's no one right answer. But a big factor is the larger, more diverse group of students taking the tests, combined with a widening scoring gap between the best-performing groups and those whose numbers are growing fastest.
Results released Tuesday show the high school class of 2009 earned a combined score of 1509 on the three sections of the exam, down two points from last year. The average reading and writing scores dropped one point each, while math scores held steady.
Experts caution against reading too much into the national average SAT score, given the test-taking pool changes over time and can vary widely among states. Still, the average score is now down nine points since 2006, when the writing section was first included and the test moved to a combined 2400-point scale.
Math scores are higher over the last decade, but reading scores are four points below their 1999 level.
The College Board, which administers the exam, emphasized the growing diversity of SAT-takers. Minorities made up 40 percent of last year's group, and more than a quarter of the 1.5 million test-takers reported English was not their first language at home.
That's good news in that more students aspire to college, but it also weighs down the overall scores because, on average, students from most minority groups score lower.
The exception is Asian-Americans, whose average combined score surged 13 points to a combined 1623, while scores for whites fell 2 points to 1581. For black students, average scores dropped 4 points to 1276. Average scores for two of the three categories the College Board uses for identifying Hispanics also declined, and overall ranged from 1345 to 1364.
Men also widened their advantage over women by 3 points; men scored 1523 on average compared to 1496 for women. The difference comes mostly from math scores.
Students reporting their families earned over $200,000 scored 1702, up 26 points from a year ago. That group is comparatively small, but the sharp increase could fuel further criticism the exam favors students who can afford expensive test-prep tutoring.
The SAT remains the most common college entrance exam, though the rival ACT has nearly caught up in popularity. Most colleges accept either, and a growing minority no longer requires either one.
Still, fewer than half of high school graduates take the three-hour, 45-minute SAT, and the group is tilted toward higher-achieving, college-bound students.
"I just don't think it's a good gauge of what's going on nationally," said Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who said the SAT remains a useful tool, when combined with high school GPA, for evaluating how well individual students are prepared for college.
Experts generally pay closer attention to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, because, unlike college entrance exams, it represents the entire population of students.
On those exams, K-12 black and Hispanic students have made bigger gains than whites since the 1970s. Since 2004, they've made improvements in reading and math at every level or age tested, but the achievement gap between minority and white students has remained wide because whites have also done better.
College Board officials don't attribute the widening SAT scoring gap directly to race but to factors that correlate with race, such as the likelihood of exposure to a rigorous high school curriculum. Students taking a core curriculum — including four years of English and three each of science, social science and history — scored 44-46 points higher on each section of the SAT.
"Our data suggest the gap is widening as academic preparation widens," said Wayne Camara, the College Board's vice president of research and development.
White kids are more likely to have access to advanced college-prep subjects than blacks and Hispanics, and the success of Asian-Americans on the SAT is also probably due in part to their push to enroll in such courses.
Whatever Asian-Americans are doing, educators want to bottle it.
"For students who are planning to attend college, there's this one group that's outperforming everybody," said Seppy Basili, senior vice president at Kaplan Test Prep. "So what is it about this group? Can we do something to study it?"
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- Posted on August 25, 2009
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when i was reading this story my jaw dropped. the scores recorded for this review are kind of pitiful if you ask me. student need to put more energy towards their work.
This article is very important because soon we will be the ones taking the Sat's, and it is good to know what people are having problems. One of those problems would be the English section but since more than 1 quarter of the 1.5 million people who took the Sat's English was not their original language. Also the new addition of a writing section could make it worse because not that many people actually like writing unless it is something they can relate to. They show that math is the section that hasn't gotten any worse. They also proved that Asian Americans get the best grades followed by white people then black people.
This was a very interesting article, especially because starting next year this pertains to us. SAT scores from early 1990's to the early 2000's rose gradually, but since 2005 they have began to drop a couple points each year. Men tend to score higher than women on the test. People of oriental descent score the highest when it comes to race followed by whites, then blacks. Students tend to still be scoring well in the math department, but English not as well. This could be because about 1.5 million students do not speak this language at home.
Over the last five years, SAT scores have been lowering for the high school class of 2009. They are uncertain of the reasoning behind this decrease in scores, but a lot of it has to do with larger diversity within the students who take this test. The students dropped in subjects such as reading and writing, but stayed the same in math. Many students reported that English was not their main language at home, which would also have an impact on the results. Different ethnicities have been shown to have done better or worse than others, correlating with race. Officials have stated that some races are known to do better than others, but to one it is said that the gap is widening as academic preparation widens as well.
i feel that now there are to many distractions for kids such as video games they care more about that kind of stuff then school. i also feel that the smarter kids do have too easy of classes because teachers have to teach classes based on everyone and not just the smartest or the not as smart. then when they are able to take advanced classes the same year they have to take the sats
This article is mainly about comparing the SAT scores between whites and other minorities. Over all it looks to me that the Asain American minority is doing better then everyone and educators want it to end. Also the men even have an advantage over women when scoring in the SATs. I feel that there should be no real explaination to why certain groups are doing betterthen others, I mean if they're american citizens, then we ll learned the same things, so there is really nothing we can do outperform Asian American groups when it comes to the SATs.
Average scores on the SAT college entrance exam increased through the 1990s and early 2000s, but in the past five years, the scores have been decreasing. The reason might be more diverse groups of students. That's good that more students aspire to college, but it weighs down the overall scores as students from minority groups score lower on average. Hispanics declined and men widened their advantage over women by 3 points. The SAT is still the most popular college entrance exam, but the ACT is almost as popular. The scoring gap probably isn't directly affected by race and rather affected by the exposure to a rigorous high school curriculum.
Only reading and writing scores are dropping. Those tests involve grammar, and I don't think people understand grammar as much as they used to. Text messaging and the Internet could be partly responsible because with those you don't need to be grammatically correct. I think people are also becoming lazy and are not trying to learn grammar, or are not studying for the SAT. The PSAT could help, but it costs money and many people are probably unwilling to pay for it. But, statistics are not completely reliable and these statistics could just mean nothing.
I thought this was a good piece to read, Because its true our tests scores have been dropping, because students these day don't care about how they do on test they just want to get them done and over with. If students try harder by studying we wont be so far down in testing score compared to other Nations.
i read this article and i have to say, i strongly disagree with the majority of it. even though SAT scores are changing, some for the better and some for the worse, i do not believe that everyone should think that because of your race some scores are expected. all students are given the opportunity to a good and equal education with which they could excel and in turn, receive a good SAT score. but stereotypes, like stated in this article, might have an impact on some kids and how seriously they take their education. and for my last thought, would be on what they were saying about "rich" kids having SAT scores above all the rest. this i do believe is common because of the access they have to extra tools and tutors. this is just a fact that some people may not like but they cannot change. that is my opinion on why SAT scores are changing.