SAT Scores Rise, but Trouble Spots Remain

Scores on the SAT, one of the nation’s key barometers of academic fitness for college-bound seniors, show that math achievement is up 3 points, reaching the highest level in 26 years. But results of the verbal test showed no growth--perhaps because high school students today take fewer English courses than they did a decade ago.

The nationwide average for exams taken during the last school year was 511 in math and 505 in verbal ability, according to the College Board, the private New York-based group that sponsors the college entrance exam.

In California, the overall news was generally good. Last year’s seniors, in both public and private schools, averaged 514 on the math portion of the exam, surpassing the previous year’s class--as well as the national average--by three points. The verbal score rose one point to 496.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said she was pleased by California’s progress. Of concern, however, were figures suggesting that California seniors may not be as well-prepared for college as their counterparts across the nation. Only 31% of California seniors took at least 20 college preparatory courses, contrasted with 43% of those taking the Scholastic Assessment Test nationwide.

“We are making some progress on course-taking, but we are failing to close the gap between California and the rest of the nation,” said Eastin, who has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to pass legislation that would beef up high school graduation requirements.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, scores inched upward--to 432 on the verbal SAT and 452 in math. Despite the gains, Los Angeles seniors remained well behind those across the state and nation, and still failed to regain the level of the 1991-92 school year, when a sharp decline began.

School officials responded guardedly to the improvement, which they characterized as only a small step on the road to parity with the state and nation.

“It’s continuing a two-year upward trend, which we find to be very hopeful . . . but the scores are still low,” said district spokesman Brad Sales.

Sales said Supt. Ruben Zacarias, who was out of town, “has made it clear he wants to see students enrolled in tougher academic classes and he wants to see them succeeding. We hope that would help us catch up.”

The scores, however, only reflect the performance of those high schoolers in the district who took the college entrance exams. And a downward trend in the number of Los Angeles Unified students taking the test continued. There was no immediate explanation for the dip from a high of 11,329 in 1992-93 to 10,995 last year. Ninety-two fewer seniors took the test this year than in 1995.

District math scores improved the most, up from 449 to 452, while verbal scores advanced only from 431 to 432.

Across Los Angeles County, the combined scores on the two portions of the exams climbed 6 points to 963, with the largest gain a 4-point jump in math, said Jim Parker, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

The 78,403 students in 52 districts who took the test, including those in Los Angeles Unified, had a mean score of 466 on the verbal portion, up 2 points, and 497 in math.

Including a 9-point increase last year, the combined countywide score has gone up 15 points in two years.

Los Angeles, like California as a whole, presents a far different profile than much of the rest of the nation in terms of who takes the SAT. Both state and local education officials noted these differences--California has twice as many test-takers whose primary language is not English as does the nation, for example--in explaining why local scores may not compare favorably to those in other states.

Yet Michael Kirst, a Stanford University education professor and co-director of the nonprofit think tank Policy Analysis for California Education, said California’s scores are in a stable period, lacking the huge fluctuations that characterized the 1970s and 1980s.

What is encouraging, Kirst said, is that the proportion of California seniors taking the exam has climbed--from 30% in 1971 to 41% today. Although that rate is lower than in other large industrialized states--in New York, for instance, 74% of high school graduates took the test--California’s progress is “really heartening,” he said. “It indicates higher aspirations.”

On Advanced Placement tests, meanwhile, California’s impressive track record continued. The state had a 64.3% pass rate on the tests, better than the national average of 62.9%. Students who earn a 3 or better on a scale of 1 to 5 often qualify for college credit.

Nationally, a record 32% of students who took the SAT exams were minorities, the College Board said. That represents a 10-point gain from 1987.

Over the last decade, the biggest gains in SAT scores were made by Asian Americans. Their verbal scores rose from 479 in 1987 to 496 this year, while their average math score rose from 541 to 560. Latinos showed little progress, and the scores of Mexican American students actually have declined over 10 years, from 458 to 451 on the verbal exam. Mexican American students improved in math, however, with their average score rising 3 points to 458.

Among black students, verbal scores have risen 6 points over the past decade, from 428 to 434, while math scores have jumped 12 points to 423.

The College Board report also showed a wide gap in achievement between public and private schools. In California, for instance, parochial school students averaged 526 on the verbal portion of the exam and 518 in math, while students from other private schools averaged 574 on the verbal exam and 582 in math. Those scores were as much as 84 points higher than the public school averages.

Although girls consistently earn higher high school grades, their SAT scores continue to lag behind boys’, with the gap reaching 36 points in math and 4 points in verbal skills.

Critics of the SAT were quick to leap on this disparity as evidence of continuing gender bias on the exam.

“The College Board has still failed to get the message that gender bias is wrong and illegal,” said Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing in Cambridge, Mass.

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* SAT SCORES: Results from L.A. Unified and other area school districts. B4