SAT math scores hit record high, but is it real progress?
It was a good grade on what has been a mixed report card for American students lately in math.
The high school class of 2005 recorded the highest-ever average scores on the math portion of the SAT college entrance exam, according to results released Tuesday. Though the 2-point gain from last year — to 520 out of a possible 800 — was modest, the latest scores are part of a 25-year trend of gradual improvement.
“Over the last 13 years the increase in math scores has been about 19 points, and that’s fairly significant,” said Wayne Camara, director of research at the College Board, which owns the test and released the results Tuesday.
Scores on the verbal section of the SAT were unchanged at 508, and have shown less improvement than math over the longer term.
The results are the latest evidence in a complex debate about how well American students are doing in math. On the one hand, there have been definite signs of progress, with national and many state tests showing improvements in basic skills, and some narrowing of racial achievement gaps. But other tests have raised concerns older students are slipping farther behind, especially compared to peers in other countries.
On Tuesday, College Board officials and outside experts greeted the results with cautious applause, saying they continue to be alarmed by the wide gap between the scores of different racial groups. Composite scores for black students have risen 10 points over the last decade to 864, for instance, but that remains more than 200 points below the average composite score for white students, who scored 22 points higher than a decade ago.
“The bottom line is we should take pleasure in the fact American kids are doing better in math,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education policy, an independent research group. “Math achievement is going up in the United States in the long term. It is not, however, where kids in the United States ought to be.”
Experts have debated the extent of progress. In July, figures from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed the nation’s 9- and 13-year-olds recorded their highest math scores ever, but scores for 17-year-olds were flat.
Last December, two studies painted a conflicting picture of how well Americans are learning math compared to peers abroad. One that examined how well students were mastering a math curriculum was encouraging, but Americans did poorly on another that focused on how well students can apply math in the real world.
The picture is also somewhat mixed for the two main standardized college entrance exams. The ACT, a rival exam to the SAT that reported results last month, said math scores were flat this year, though that was considered somewhat positive given that a larger and more diverse group of students is taking the test.
The next milestone is the release of more NAEP data this fall.
The Bush administration has made closing the racial achievement gap a top education priority, and it is one of the chief aims of the No Child Left Behind Law. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings issued a statement on the results Tuesday saying the law is working in lower grades and “it’s time to bring those principles to our nation’s high schools.”
Cathy Seeley, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said an increase of 2 points should be considered significant, given that 1.48 million students took the test. She attributed the gains various tests have shown recently to a tougher curriculum.
“(Students) are taking more courses and they’re taking higher level courses,” she said. “That’s not a surprise, because most of the states now have increased their math requirements for high school graduation.”
But College Board officials pointed out continued disparities in the courses different groups are taking, drawing a strong link between them and the SAT scoring gap. For instance, 44 percent of Asian-American SAT-takers took calculus in high school, compared to just 14 percent of blacks. Asian-Amercians’ average composite score of 1091 was the highest of any ethnic group.
“It’s unfair to those kids who don’t get to take those good courses and don’t get the chance to go to college,” said College Board President Gaston Caperton.
The College Board also released its first glimpse of data on the new version of the SAT, which features a writing section with an essay, and which members of the class of 2006 began taking last spring. Those students appeared to find the new section the hardest, with average scores of 516, compared to 519 in critical reading (the new name for verbal) and 537 in math.
Officials said those scores would likely decline when the final scores for the class are released next year. Students who take the test as juniors are generally more highly motivated and do better than average.
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