SAT Scores Dip Nationwide but Minorities Show Gains

Scores by black and Chicano students on the Scholastic Aptitude Test for college entrance rose slightly again this year, continuing a decade of improvement but remaining well below the national average, the College Board announced Monday.

The average black student this year scored 737 points out of a possible 1,600; that is nine points higher than last year and 51 more than in 1978. Mexican-Americans averaged 810, up seven points from last year and 38 over the last decade.

Meanwhile, the national average for all students dropped two points this year to 904, the first dip in eight years. California scores rose two points to 908. The College Board, which administers the tests, described those national and statewide changes as insignificant, although several education officials expressed disappointment over a lack of marked improvement.

On his next to last day in office, U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett issued a statement Monday blaming schools for the falloff in national scores: “No medal for America in this news. I said in April that the absolute level at which our improvements are taking place is unacceptably low. Today it’s a bit lower and still not acceptable. C’mon, team. Back into training.”

Joseph Allen, director of admissions at UC Santa Cruz, said he was disturbed that national averages are 50 points below those of 20 years ago. “It is certainly a sign of a failing education system,” he said. However, one reason for the lower scores, he added, is that many more minority and lower-income students are taking the test these days.

Critics long have said that the SATs are culturally biased in favor of white and middle-class teen-agers, who are also more likely to take prep courses for the tests. As a result of such criticism and a national push to increase college enrollment of minorities, some colleges and universities rely less on the test scores when evaluating minorities compared to whites for admission.

The College Board has denied the allegations of unfairness and points to the boost in scores by minorities. “I am very pleased by the steady progress shown on the SAT in the past decade by ethnic minorities,” said Donald M. Stewart, president of the College Board. But he added: “If the gap between minority and majority test scores is ever to be closed, improvements in the elementary and secondary education of minority students must be accelerated.”

Stewart also stressed that 1,134,364 students took the SAT in 1988, 5% more than the year before and 13% more than in 1986. Larger numbers of test-takers usually mean lower national averages, according to the College Board. So the increase in minority scores along with the number of minority test-takers is especially noteworthy, officials said.

The test is divided into verbal and mathematical portions, with each part scored on a scale of 200 to 800. The national average verbal score fell two points this year to 428 and math remained at 476. Average verbal scores for women fell by three points to 422 while their math rose two points to 455. Men averaged 435 in verbal for the second year in a row while they dropped two points in math to 498.

Blacks, on average, earned 353 in verbal and 384 in math, up two points and seven points, respectively, from 1987. For Mexican-Americans, the averages were 382 in verbal and 428 in math, up three and four points each. Asian-Americans scored 408 in verbal and 522 in math, three points and one point higher. Whites, on the average, dropped two points in verbal, to 445, and went up one point to 490 in math this year.

State Scores Rise

In California, the average scores this year were 424 in verbal, the same as the previous year, and 484 in math, up two points. The total of 908 was 15 points higher than a decade ago. State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig on Monday attributed that rise to the back-to-basics reforms he has stressed. He said he was gratified that the number of California high school seniors taking the SAT rose 17%, to 119,784, over the last few years while the number of seniors actually declined slightly.

Meanwhile, the 1988 results of the American College Testing Assesments were also released and mirrored the tiny overall change of its larger rival SAT. National composite scores in English, math, social studies and natural sciences was 18.8, up 0.1 over 1987, said David S. Crockett, vice president of public affairs of ACT, the Iowa City organization that administers the test. ACTs are scored from 1 to 36 and the data is based on scores of 842,322 high school seniors who took the test.

The slight increase in the ACT national average was the result of better performances by minorities because the Anglo scores remained at 19.6, he said. In the 1988 ACT, ethnic averages included: black, 13.6, up 0.2; Mexican-American, 15.7, up 0.3; Asian American-Pacific islander, 19.9, up 0.1. ACT does not release state results, but it has very little presence in California.

SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE TEST SCORES According to the College Board, there has been very little change in SAT scores among California high school students and college-bound seniors nationwide.