WASHINGTON, D.C.
African-Americans posted the lowest scores in the reading, writing and math portions of the newly expanded SAT, which saw its lowest number of test-takers since 1991, according to a report released Tuesday by the College Board on the performance of the high school class of 2006.
Math and reading scores plummeted by 7 points overall, representing the largest annual change in three decades. The average critical reading score decreased by 8 points for males and by 3 points for females. The average combined math score dropped by 2 points for both males and females.
“When a new test is introduced, students usually vary their test-taking behavior in a variety of ways, and this affects scores,” says Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, about the decrease in SAT scores. College Board officials attribute the drop in scores to a decline in the number of students who re-took the test. Retakes generally result in a 30-point improvement.
Of the 3 million students who graduated high school in 2006, just 48 percent took the SAT. There was a 0.2 percent increase in the number of minorities who took the test compared to the year before. Minorities this year comprised 38 percent of the total test takers.
Thanks in part to the new writing section, females closed the gender gap to 26 points. Last year, the combined SAT score showed a 42-point gap between males and females. The average score on the writing section was 497, with females outscoring males by 11 points across all racial and ethnic groups. Males outperform females in the critical reading section in all races, except for Blacks, where females scored 7 points higher than males.
Blacks still score the lowest across the board on critical reading (434), math (429) and writing (428). Whites scored, on average, the highest in critical reading (527) and writing (519) while Asians scored the highest in mathematics (528). Still, the reading score for Whites represented a significant decline. In fact, non-Mexican Hispanics and Whites showed the largest declines in critical reading, down 5 points each, to 458 and 527, respectively.
