Despite some bad news in national SAT results, analysts say worrying is premature

The College Board, which oversees undergraduate and graduate school entrance exams, released results for the 2011 SATs, revealing mixed news: More students took the test than ever before, posting scores that are some of the lowest in history.

On reading comprehension, the 1.65 million students who filled out answer sheets earned a mean score of 497 out of a possible 800 — a three-point drop off from 2010. Comparatively, the results in 2005 showed a mean score of 507.

Here is a break down of the scores compared to previous years, provided by College Board, with CR standing for critical reading, and M and W standing for math and writing:

Accounting for the declining scores is the growth in the diversity of students participating in the exam. The College Board wrote in a press release:

And just as school performance is linked to socio-economic conditions, so goes the trend among test takers who qualified for a fee-waiver of the exam, an indicator of lower economic means:

Brian Stecher, Senior Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation, told The American Independent a researcher’s analytical strategy for looking at how factors might have been related is to consider the change in the pool of students taking the SATs.

“As the population that takes the test expands beyond, say, the most successful and most college-ready, and includes a larger number of students, then we can expect the scores to decline,” Stecher said.

He added, however, that the relationship between the volume of students and the variation in mean scores is not a fixed one. He said researchers should evaluate whether the rate of increased diversity among test takers is in sync with the rate in decline of the scores. Stecher also pointed out the ACT took over the SAT this year in student participation, skewing historical trends.

Students enrolled in advanced courses performed better on average than the rest of the pool. The College Board provided the following numbers:

Some organizations took the published results as an opportunity to criticize the education landscape at large. Bob Schaeffer of FairTest.org said, “[P]roponents of [No Child Left Behind] and similar state-level testing programs promised that overall achievement would improve while score gaps would narrow. Precisely the opposite has taken place.”

He added: “Policymakers need to embrace very different policies if they are committed to real education reform.”

A press release by the group expounded on Schaeffer’s criticism:

A FairTest analysis shows that overall SAT averages dropped significantly under the NCLB federal testing mandate. At the same time, gaps between Whites, Asians, and historically disadvantaged African-Americans and Hispanics have been growing larger. ACT scores, made public last month, demonstrated similar patterns.

But Matthew Di Carlo of the Albert Shanker Institute warns against drawing too many conclusions from the SATs.

“These tests are voluntary, and the sample of students who choose to take one or both can be very different from one year to the next in terms of their demographic, academic and other characteristics,” Di Carlo told TAI. “Overall score changes between years, especially small changes, might just as easily be due to this self-selection as to any ‘real’ change in aptitude of U.S. students.”

Beyond the increased diversity of the test pool, the College Board pointed to additional good news: 43 percent of test takers scored above a 1550 cumulatively, the score the firm says separates students who are likely to perform well in college to those who will struggle. Breaking that threshold, the press release explains, means students have a 65 percent change of averaging a B- or better in their first year of college.