The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
State SAT numbers barely move
For all the instructional changes and efforts made, the needle has barely moved on the number of high school juniors making the grade since the state started administering the SAT in school four years ago.
Same goes for closing the achievement gap between students.
On Monday, the state released the scores of the SAT taken by Connecticut’s students last spring.
The average score in language arts on SAT scores was 515 out of a possible 800. That is a point below last year and five points lower than in 2016 when schoolbased SAT testing began.
In math, the average score in 2019 was 501, two points below last year and a point higher than 2016.
State officials can point
to good news. Because the test now counts as a state accountability assessment, the average scores tell how many students are performing at grade level. In language arts, 62 percent of all students met or exceeded the goal.
“What this tells us is that a solid majority of our students are meeting achievement benchmark standards,” said Ajit Gopalakrishnan, the chief performance officer for the state Department of Education. “A big chunk are meeting the standards.”
In math, meanwhile, just 41 percent met the at grade level or above standard.
Many more need to meet the standards, he acknowledged, particularly in math, and particularly in high needs groups, meaning students learning English, with disabilities, or who come from lowincome families.
“We still have a long way to go,” the state official said.
Statewide view
Some 36,916 juniors took the SAT in Connecticut public high schools in March or April. That is fewer than four years ago, because the population has gone down.
Also, a larger chunk of the population is now in the high needs category — 43 percent in 2019 compared with 38 percent in 2016.
“It is important to remember each year the population tested is different,” Gopalakrishnan said.
He does see some pockets of improvement. In math, while the average score dipped, the percentage of black and Hispanic students meeting the grade level mark improved. The percentage of high needs students reaching grade level improved slightly in both math and language arts.
Yet there remains a roughly 90point gap between white students and students who are black, Hispanic or have high needs. The gap between those groups in language arts is roughly 100 points wide. Gopalakrishnan called for patience. Although the needle has barely moved over the past four years, students who started their school careers with Common Core standards, where the math is harder, have not yet made it to high school.
“On Smarter Balance we see significant improvement in younger grades,” Gopalakrishnan said.
The state began using the SAT as its accountability assessment for high school students as a way to reduce the number of tests students face. Because it is a test many students take in order to get into college, more take it seriously.
But it has also raised new concerns. Although this version of the SAT is said to be more aligned to what students are taught, richer districts with more access to private test prep options clearly do better. In Darien this year, the average scores were 611 for language arts and 628 for math. In New Britain, the average scores were 430 for language arts and 413 for math.
State officials say to try and even the scales, students in high needs districts get to take the PSAT for free.
School level SAT scores are expected to be available Monday on the state Department of Education website.