SAT Scores Show 9-Point Gain : Results Hailed as Mark of Education Improvements

The average score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test has jumped nine points this year, the sharpest gain in the 22 years that the College Board has compiled national results.

U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett hailed the increase Friday as “further evidence that American secondary education is on the mend.”

California scores were not immediately available, but they are expected to show a similar rise.

“The scores are going up because students are taking harder courses. We should expect to see them continue to rise,” said California Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who will announce results for the state Monday.

Taken by 1 Million Seniors

The test, taken by nearly 1 million high school seniors each year, is the most closely watched educational barometer, and the long slide in the average score from 1968 to the early 1980s was cited regularly as evidence of the sad state of American education.

A barrage of reports in 1983 tended to blame the educational decline on high school courses that were weak in substance and not challenging to students. Since then, nearly every state has rushed to raise its high school graduation standards and require more academic course work.

Last year, graduating seniors registered an overall four-point gain on the college board test, and this year’s seniors topped that, scoring five points better on the verbal test and four points better in mathematics.

The average score on the verbal test stood at 431 this year, the highest figure since 1976, while the math average was 475, the best performance since 1975.

Reading Gains Noted

Bennett noted that a national study of reading released earlier this week found improvements in reading at all age levels.

“We begin to see here the impact of the reform movement of the past several years,” he said, while cautioning that the scores “have still not recovered to the levels they were at before the decline began.”

The high point for the SATs came in 1963 when students registered a combined score of 980. The exam, which is designed by the Education Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., has a verbal and math test, each of which is scored on a scale that ranges from 200 to 800.

Lowest Score in 1980

The scores hit bottom in 1980 when the combined score stood at 890. This year’s gain brings the total to 906.

The College Board in New York planned to release the scores on Monday, an event annually dreaded by many school officials. This year, however, the good news has traveled fast, and the results have been leaked in several cities.

Last year, President Reagan said the nation’s schools should set a goal of wiping out half the decline in SAT scores by 1990, a goal that would require a seven-point gain each year. Federal officials noted that this year’s increase is ahead of that pace.