College Board sees dip in senior readiness

More than half of graduating seniors who took the SAT exam are ill-prepared for college -- most notably in reading, where scores have hit their lowest point in the nearly four decades on record, the College Board said Wednesday.

Nationwide, the board reported, reading scores for college-bound students in the class of 2011 dropped to an average of 497, down 3 points from last year and more than 30 points since 1972. Writing scores averaged 489 -- a 2-point drop from last year and 8 points since 2006, when an essay assignment was added to the test.

Math scores held up better, though not by much. The latest scores averaged 514, which was down a point from last year, but up 5 points from 1972. Each SAT section is graded on a scale from 200 to 800.

The College Board, which is based in Manhattan, reported that nearly 1.65 million students from the class of 2011 took the exam at some point during high school -- the largest number ever, it said. The board also noted steady growth in numbers and percentages of test-takers who are black or Hispanic.

Arne Duncan, the U.S. education secretary, said he was encouraged by signs that more students are taking entrance exams and preparing for college, but added that "the overall preparedness rate from these SAT results reinforces the need to invest in reforms that prepare more students for success in college."

In New York State, where the SAT is the most-used college admissions test, scores also have trended downward. Latest reading scores averaged 485, up 2 points from the previous year but down 5 points since 2007. Writing results averaged 476, down a point from the year before and 4 points since 2007. Math scores averaged 499, up a point from the year before, down 4 points from 2007.

Wednesday's College Board report included a new feature: a "benchmark" score purporting to show whether students are academically prepared for their first year of college. The board pegged that score at a combined 1550 out of a possible 2400 on all three sections of the test.

Statistically speaking, students who score at that level are said to have a 65 percent chance of earning a B- average or higher during their first year of college. The College Board said 43 percent of test-takers in the high school class of 2011 reached that mark or higher.

Academic experts don't consider SAT scores a precise barometer of nationwide achievement, especially because many teens in the Midwest and South take the ACT as an admissions exam instead. Federally sponsored tests, which are regarded as more accurate measures, show that reading and math achievement among 17-year-olds have remained generally flat since the 1970s.

Anti-testing advocates seized upon the latest dip in SAT scores as further evidence that schools have spent too much class time prepping for standardized exams and not enough time on instruction.

"We feel that schooling on average has been dumbed down by a fixation on testing," said Bob Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a Massachusetts-based advocacy group.

On college campuses, many instructional experts are urging high schools to spend more time showing students how to read and interpret works of nonfiction. This is also a goal of the Common Core project, an initiative sponsored by the National Governors Association in an effort to encourage states to adopt curriculum standards that are more uniformly rigorous.So far, 44 states, including New York, have adopted this approach. Tests reflecting the new standards are scheduled to be administered in this state starting in the next school year.

Dolores Edwards, an English instructor at Nassau Community College, endorses the greater emphasis on nonfiction reading.

"Students need to know facts," she said. "You can't write, you can't support a thesis, if you don't have the facts to back your thesis."