Texas SAT scores lowest in decades

State says slump partly due to more students taking it.

Texas high school students taking the SAT have posted the lowest scores in more than two decades, showing decreases across the board and mirroring a nationwide decline.

The College Board, which administers the college entrance tests, reports that Texas students in the Class of 2015 averaged 486 on the math section of the test — down nine points from the previous year — and 470 in reading, down six points.

A perfect score in each section is 800. Writing scores averaged 454, off seven points.

The Texas scores mirror declines nationwide, although other states haven’t fallen as much.

Lower scores are due at least in part to policies of two dozen districts where all upper-class students now take the SAT each year, Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said.

“The SAT takers in those districts include not only those who are college-bound, but the whole student population (of juniors and seniors),” she told The Dallas Morning News.

“That translates in lower average scores because the more test takers you have, the more scores will decline,” Ratcliffe said.

Texas education officials attributed the declining SAT scores in the state to an increase in the number of minority students taking the exam, the newspaper said.

Minority students generally perform worse than white students on such standardized achievement tests, it said.