ATLANTA – Average statewide SAT scores showed mixed results Tuesday in the eight Southern Regional Education Board states that mainly use the test — and the results indicate that states need to improve reading and writing instruction in the middle grades and high school.
Results in SREB states from 2009 generally mirrored results nationally: Average national scores slipped by 1 point on two sections of the test: to 501 in critical reasoning (formerly the verbal section of the test) and 493 in writing.
Scores held steady nationally at 515 in mathematics, according to The College Board, the New York City-based nonprofit organization that runs the SAT. The national average composite score was 1509 out of a possible 2400, compared with a 1487 average for all of the SREB states.
In a promising trend, the numbers of high school seniors taking the SAT rose or remained steady in all eight SAT-dominant SREB states, including a rise of 6 percentage points in South Carolina and 5 points in Florida. (The Florida gain may stem in part from more students taking the SAT as an alternative to the state’s FCAT high school graduation exam.)
Notably, Florida saw its statewide overall average rise by 1 point to 1475, and its average scores on the critical reasoning and math sections of the test rise, even as a significantly larger number of students took the college-admission test.
Other SREB states saw mixed results, including Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. Virginia remained the only one of the eight SAT-dominant SREB states to beat the overall national average score of 1509, with an average of 1521.
Average scores fell on all three sections of the SAT — critical reasoning, math and writing — in three SREB states: Delaware, Georgia and South Carolina. All eight of the SAT-dominant SREB states saw average writing scores fall.
An SAT-dominant state is one in which 50 percent or more of high school seniors have taken the test. This year’s test results are for students who graduated in 2009, including many who last took the SAT in 2008.
"Even though more students are taking the SAT and are showing an interest in college, scores are not rising at the rates states would like to see," SREB President Dave Spence said. "This should be a call to action for improving reading and writing instruction in the middle grades and high school.
"States need to develop college- and career-readiness standards to help teachers and students understand the precise levels of skill and knowledge that students need to be prepared for college and career training," Spence said.
SREB and a distinguished panel of state leaders from across the region, led by Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, called this year for improved reading instruction to become the number one priority in public schools. The major SREB report, A Critical Mission: Making Adolescent Reading an Immediate Priority in SREB States, was released in May and continues to receive national attention from policy-makers and educators.
SREB also is working with several states to improve high school graduates’ college/career readiness. A $2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports SREB’s work in Texas, Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia and other states to help states begin to develop or revise college-readiness standards.
Demographic changes in SREB states and across the nation may have an influence on SAT scores, as many more students from traditionally less-educated families pursue college. Forty percent of high school seniors who have taken the SAT now come from racial/ethnic minority groups, and nearly the same percentage who took the SAT nationally had parents with only a high school diploma or lower. About one in four of students taking the SAT does not exclusively speak English as the first language, the organization reported. Black male students had the lowest average SAT score nationwide by a considerable margin — further evidence of troubling achievement gaps among racial/ethnic groups nationally and regionally.
Rigorous high school courses, including Advanced Placement courses, can help students prepare for the SAT and for college-level work.
SREB’s Challenge to Lead Goals for Education call for more students to take college admission tests, to score higher on those tests and for SREB states to reduce gaps in test scores among all groups of students.
For more information about improvements in college admission tests scores in SREB states, contact SREB Communications. Also, see the SREB report Improving ACT and SAT Scores: Making Progress, Facing Challenges, which analyzes 10 years of test-score data and trends across the region, at www.sreb.org.
The Southern Regional Education Board, or SREB, based in Atlanta, was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. More information is available online at www.sreb.org.
