Earlier preparation may help lift Georgia SAT scores

By Nancy Badertscher

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia’s average SAT score tumbled for a third straight year, falling six points in 2009, the College Board announced Tuesday.

However, individual schools and even a few of the state’s 159 public school systems were buoyed by the exam results, which help to gauge whether a high school senior is college material. Bert Brantley, spokesman for Gov. Sonny Perdue, described the governor as “disappointed” in the scores. One issue Perdue wants to explore is whether students should be encouraged to take either the SAT or ACT, but not both.

More students appear to be taking each test once and may be missing “the bump” that taking the same test twice can provide, Brantley said.

With a drop in its average SAT score from 1,466 in 2008 to 1,460 this year, the state kept its ranking as 47th in the nation. Only South Carolina, Hawaii, Maine and Washington, D.C., had lower scores this year.

Nationally, 1.53 million students put their math, reading and writing skills to the test, according to the College Board, which administers the test. Those scores were off two points, to 1,509, but 49 points above Georgia’s average.

A perfect score on the SAT is 2,400, and that was achieved by one student at Alpharetta, Chattahoochee and Roswell high schools in north Fulton County.

Thirty-eight schools in metro Atlanta had scores that exceeded the state and national average. Eight others in the area did better than the average state score of 1,460, and test-takers at Atlanta’s Carver High School showed some of the biggest improvement, going from an average score of 1,059 in 2008 to 1,192 — a 133-point gain.

But the statewide slide, which follows a six-point drop last year and a four-point drop in 2007, was a surprise, especially with all the emphasis that public schools are putting on SAT prep — some starting with ninth- grade students.

“When I got the initial score, of course [I said] what happened,” Kathy Cox, state schools superintendent, said Tuesday.

Some of the drop in scores may be due to increased minority participation in the test — 35 percent this year, compared to 32 percent last year, Cox said. “What hits home is there’s a 274-point difference between the performance of a white student in Georgia that wants to go to college and an African-American student that wants to go to college,” she said.

The scores, Cox said, point out the need for more talk and action so “this achievement gap can turn around.”

The average score for African-American students in Georgia’s public schools was 1,274, 10 points higher than the national average of 1,264 for African-Americans, according to the state Department of Education. Hispanic public school students in Georgia scored a 1,412, 66 points higher than the national average of 1,346.

The biggest decline this year was on the writing portion, where test takers scored 479, down from 483 last year. On the math section, Georgia students scored 491, down two points from 2008. The critical reading score was 490, compared to 491 last year.

Among Georgia high schoolers, about 71 percent took the SAT this year, much higher than the national participation rate of 46 percent.

Joan Lord, vice president of education policies for the Southern Regional Education Board, said her group was “disappointed in the slide” in scores. “We had not expected that,” she said.

Lord said schools need to start helping students to prepare for the test in ninth grade, if not earlier.

“We think that a commitment to reading and writing is absolutely critical, and we’re pretty certain our middle grades and high schools are not putting the emphasis on reading and writing that they need to,” she said.

Susan Walker, director of policy and research for the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, said: “With all the focus on raising high school graduation rates, increasing the rigor of our curriculum, and providing supports for at-risk students, we expected to see at least a marginal climb in scores this year.”

The slide — three points just for public school students — “signifies that we must stop and closely examine what we are doing in education and where there might be a policy-practice disconnect,” Walker said.

In Georgia, math is clearly a weakness — with the state lagging 24 points behind the nation on the SAT in that subject, she said.

“As the new math curriculum continues to be rolled out, we are hopeful that the SAT math scores will improve,” Walker said.

Database reporter Matt Dempsey contributed to this article.