<p>NPR had a report on the SATs tonight. Basically the reason for the drop was (as I said) attributed to lots more ESL immigrants, hispanics, and blacks taking the test. The numbers of non-whites, lower income and children of non-college educated parents has jumped over the last 10 years. That is bound to mean lower average scores. The fact that has dropped so little is actually pretty impressive. Also mentioned the high correlation of score with income.</p>
<p>There was also an AP story this morning reporting on a press conference where CB tried to defend the notion that SAT-Reasoning Test scores were still comparable to old SATs.</p>
<p>Among their explanations for the drop, in addition to the demographic changes already mentioned were:</p>
<p>states/school districts requiring the SAT (mean scores in Maine (M+CR) dropped over 70 points this year, because the test is required of all juniors)</p>
<p>fewer students retaking the longer SAT and thereby improving their scores</p>
<p>ACT scores have continued to rise over the past few years, so it seems that some of the decline may at least potentially attributable to the test as well, as eager as CB is to deny this.</p>
<p>Of the various points listed by MarathonMan (thanks for the report!) I would think only the third would apply to MA. MA has not experienced an influx of immigrants, illegal or not (in fact, it has experienced demographic decline); it does not require that all juniors take the SAT.</p>
<p>The Math now covers more than it used to up to precal and the verbal got rid of analogies…of course grammar is covered in the writing section and not all schools emphasize that any more. </p>
<p>A factor may also be that while we have had unbridled immigration, illegal mainly, in this country our President signed into law the no child left behind act WHICH rerouted money to bringing the bottom up and left the high achieving students sitting and waiting. You can’t scream about scores going down at the same time call schools failing if they can’t make students who have never been schooled or are illiterate in their native lang. LITERATE in English. Tutoring, special incentives to gt them to come to school, parties, etc. just for the bottom. What about SAT tutoring for the others?? </p>
<p>Another thing i have noticed in taking my child to h.s. Almost ALL of the minority students at our h.s. (and we are 38% white) take NO books home. (Minority does not include asian or indian of course) My son is hauling a bag load every day. I think the parents should be wondering why my child isn’t doing hw.</p>
<p>I am a proud parent of a Female who made a perfect scoreon the Math!! You are right MARIAN, it is great to be a female who loves and excels in math.</p>
<p>" think the parents should be wondering why my child isn’t doing hw."</p>
<p>Should be, but they’re not. Not a priority in those families, particularly the low-skilled immigrant segment from south of the border. No role modeling at home for this. I feel sorry for any state, including my own, with such a dominant public school population of this segment. As the poster above indicates, if you are not from this population, you will be severely underserved – I will add, unless you are rich enough to be living on an estate or in a private school. One size does NOT fit all. So large states with a large illiterate population should stop trying to pretend that it is possible, and should differentiate instruction by population served. “State standards” are a joke, and increasingly irrelevant.</p>
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<p>Making such observations can be hazardous to your career if you are the president of Harvard.</p>
<p>Has anyone found the table that gives the absolute numbers of each score?</p>
<p>I’m still looking for this year’s table showing number of students at each score level. It should be posted Real Soon Now.</p>
<p>I find the spin by collegeboard in their press release to be interesting,
<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
<p>Number and Diversity of SAT® Takers at All-Time High</p>
<p>When I see a headline like that, I can immediately tell that scores are not getting higher. If CB were a for-profit corporation this would be good news indeed: more customers, including growth in new market segments. By the way, how did the students do? Actually, we are not quite sure. Compared to 10 years ago the scores are up 7 points (CR+m); compared to two years ago the scores are down 11 points. </p>
<p>I’m not sure I buy the increased number of test-takers as a reason for the decline since there is a baby boomlet demographic increase as well. There were 5.0% more live births in the US in 1989 than 1987, yet the increase in test-takers was only 1.3% from 2005 to 2007.</p>
<p>Edit: The number of high school graduates in 2007 was projected to be 4% higher than 2005.
<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/tables/dt06_099.asp[/url]”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/tables/dt06_099.asp</a></p>
<p>Does anyone know of a table which notes the % and number of females scoring between 750-800 in math? They seemed to have quoted this 2:1 number, but I can’t find the chart…</p>
<p>Forgive me for not knowing all the history, but why would rising or decreasing scores be considered a measure of collegeboards success? It seems to me that their success should be measured by how well the test predicts college success, or something to that effect. What is their stated goal?</p>
<p>CB has maintained that SAT-Reasoning scores would be comparable to those on the old SATs, while the drop in scores in exactly the years that they changed the test get you thinking otherwise. So CB has a vested interest in attributing the drop (and it’s huge given the size of the pool of test takers) to other factors. </p>
<p>Here’s an AP story, that I couldn’t find yesterday, that covers CB’s response:</p>
<p><a href=“http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAT_SCORES?SITE=ALOPE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT[/url]”>http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAT_SCORES?SITE=ALOPE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT</a></p>
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<p>Here’s CB’s statement:</p>
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<p>The mission, quite simply, “is to connect students to college success and opportunity.” They are a kind of broker that matches buyers (students) and sellers (colleges). Contrary to the wording of the above statement, the students are not CB’s customers, the institutions are. While students (test-takers) pay the lion’s share of the bills, the organization quite clearly is the creation of, and exists for, the institutions. Pretty neat trick, huh? The institutions, one would expect, want to fill their classrooms with capable students that can be successful within that particular college. As such, I’m not sure how predicting success can be the goal of the SAT test across the entire spectrum of colleges. That’s up to the institutions to determine individually - and they do. A score of 1790 may not indicate success at college A, but might well indicate a high likelihood of success at college B.</p>
<p>As a quality engineer years ago, I learned that you cannot inspect or test quality into a product. It must be designed into a product and built into a product. On an aggregate basis, SAT scores are a reflection of the state of primary and secondary education. It is hard to make the case that nationally education is improving overall.</p>
<p>Just so we’re clear, as a “URM” I’m no big fan of standardized testing ( although my family does well enough at it, thank you very much!), but as they say, I may hate the game but not the “playa”. I figure Collegeboard is a player. It just seems to me that collegeboard is somehow being blamed for declining academic achievment. I’ll have to think about that.</p>
<p>Here’s the link to 2007 SAT absolute numbers at each score:</p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
<p>Thanks. Here’s the comparison between class of 2007 (left) and class of 2006 (right) for the eight highest standard score levels. </p>
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<p>2007 2006
score n male female n male female
2400 269 99+ 144 99+ 125 99+ 238 99+ 131 99+ 107 99+
2390 242 99+ 135 99+ 107 99+ 240 99+ 122 99+ 118 99+
2380 216 99+ 126 99+ 90 99+ 153 99+ 81 99+ 72 99+
2370 333 99+ 191 99+ 142 99+ 227 99+ 122 99+ 105 99+
2360 367 99+ 196 99+ 171 99+ 402 99+ 213 99+ 189 99+
2350 422 99+ 250 99+ 172 99+ 330 99+ 197 99+ 133 99+
2340 581 99+ 306 99+ 275 99+ 534 99+ 288 99+ 246 99+
2330 576 99+ 316 99+ 260 99+ 532 99+ 295 99+ 237 99+</p>
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<p>After edit: </p>
<p>This year the standard score 2290 is the bottom of the 99+th percentile range for the total group (male 2300, female 2280). Last year (class of 2006) it was 2280 (male 2290, female 2270).</p>
<p>Here’s what I’m thinking looking at these numbers. HYPSMC all have upper 25th percentile of admitted students scoring in the perfect or near perfect ranges. Granted, they superscore and only seem to count CR and M. Nevertheless, it would seem that about 2500 perfect or near perfect scorers will be needed by these schools if they are to uphold their upper 25th percentile. The bottom 25th percentile seems to be dropping. So far not the upper 25th. If that is important to them to retain their standards then they will indeed be vying for the students scoring in the 99+ percentile. Some of these students won’t even be applying to them. Others will have poor grades or severe defects of some sort. So it does seem to me that power scores are a “hook.”</p>
<p>I like some of the stats such as 1930 = the 90th percentile for college bound seniors and the average score for kids in the top 10% of their classes (even if it’s a sligtly inflated 10%) is under 1800. Stats like these can give students who spend too much time on CC a little perspective.</p>
<p>Very true. My kids never come on here and roll their eyes at me when I mention I do. I figure it’s my job to do all the obsessing for the family.</p>
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<p>I’ll have a look at this tonight while I collect my kid and friends. My kid didn’t do much homework last year while enrolled in general ed. classes. I suspect kids do even less homework in the remedial classes. After much effort we switched her into a couple of honors level classes, where the work load is significantly greater. Uneducated parents wouldn’t necessarily realize how important that challenge is to their child’s eventual success, and might rely on the school to deem what is best for their child (a mistake, IMO).</p>
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<p>Test scores also reflect the state of the students - the brain power and work ethic. I don’t see how anyone can compare year-to-year test results not knowing details about the test population. Why don’t the testers collect socioeconomic data, parental education levels, etc. so we could see how those vary from year to year?</p>