More students took the SAT college entrance exam this year, but the recorded scores didn't go up along with the number of exam takers.
The scores actually revealed that the exam takers are not ready for work at the college level, or other career training programs.
"We know we can, and need, to do better," said Cyndie Schmeiser, chief of assessment for the College Board. "Simply doing the same things we have been doing is not going to improve these numbers."
The Board released a report Thursday, showing that the Class of 2015 has a lagging overall student performance. In almost a decade, average SAT scores are at their lowest yet for reading, writing and math.
The SAT exam administrator said less than half of the test takers - approximately 42 percent - are ready to take on college-level work or career training programs, having met a benchmark which is a combined score of 1,550 or higher for reading, writing and math. Over the past few years, this percentage has remained to be more or less the same.
From 1.67 million exam takers from the Class of 2014, numbers have risen to 1.7 million takers this year from the Class of 2015.
Among the students who took the exam and hit the benchmark were 61 percent of Asians, 53 percent of whites, 33 percent Native Americans, 23 percent of Hispanics and 16 percent of African-Americans.
The overall mean score for reading was 495 which went down from last year's overall score of 497. For writing, scores also went down to 484 this year, from 487 last year. As for math, mean score was 511, while last year it was 513.
For almost a decade now, overall mean scores have been steadily declining, with scores recorded as 503 in reading, 497 in writing and 518 in math in 2006.
To make the SAT exam more representative of what is learned in high school and of the skills students need to be able to succeed in taking on college work as well as a career afterward, the exam is being majorly revamped for next year. The revamped SAT will remove the guessing penalty, focus less on obscure vocabulary words and more on areas of mathematics which most important to readiness for college and career.
In addition, the College Board is collaborating with Khan Academy, the online educator that facilitates diagnostics and, quizzes and interactive practice tests, as SAT practice.
Photo: Alberto G. | Flickr
