As Scores Still Lag, Focus Put On SAT
County, Outdone By Its Neighbors, Rolls Out New Help

By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006

Prince William County still can't shake what has become a nettlesome problem the past several years: SAT scores that are lower than those of neighboring school districts.

Prince William's average combined score on the SAT, which now includes an essay, was the lowest among the major school districts in Northern Virginia, according to data released by the College Board and school districts Tuesday. The Prince William school system, which includes 10 high schools, had an average combined score of 1504 out of a possible 2400 -- 507 in critical reading, 504 in math and 493 in the essay.

In Fairfax County, the average combined score was 1643; in Arlington, 1620; Loudoun, 1561; and Alexandria, 1530.

Compared with the rest of the country and the state, the Prince William school system continued to lag. The division's marks were below the state average on the reading, math and essay sections. Prince William's math and essay scores were also below the national averages; the reading score was slightly above the national average.

This week, Prince William school officials singled out the SAT scores as a major problem for the district and said the results are an anomaly in an otherwise high-performing school system. With so much attention on and pressure from Virginia's Standards of Learning, Prince William school officials said they had not focused hard enough on the SAT, instead concentrating on the state exams, which determine whether schools meet federal No Child Left Behind benchmarks.

"We are hoping to change our culture and attend more to the SAT," said Pamela Gauch, associate superintendent for student learning and accountability. "We've been focused for a long time on the state Standards of Learning exams, but we've also got to remember that we have to keep reminding ourselves that this is part of our responsibility."

Last year, after the school system performed the second-worst among Northern Virginia's large school districts, a task force of principals and administrative staff members met to develop initiatives and improve the scores. During this coming academic year, which begins Tuesday, many of those ideas will be rolled out. They include free PSAT exams for sophomores and juniors, free online access to practice SAT exams and the incorporation of SAT questions into the language arts and math curriculum.

Gauch said schools across Prince William are trying to encourage more students to take Advanced Placement courses, a controversial idea. Some educators think the more students taking rigorous classes, the better; others think weaker students dilute AP classes.

Among Prince William's 10 high schools, those that performed best were mostly white and had low percentages of economically disadvantaged students. The schools with the lowest SAT scores had the highest number of minorities and low-income students.

For example, the average score at Brentsville District High School was 1573. The school is in the county's western end, where 83 percent of the students are white and 3 percent are low-income, according to the most recent data. At the other end of the spectrum is Freedom High School in Woodbridge, where about 79 percent of the students are minorities and 44 percent are low-income. That school's average was 1288.

Although SAT scores can reveal issues of inequality across the county, the school system has made a priority of narrowing the achievement gap between whites and minorities through its increased preparation and performance on the SOLs. According to last year's results available on the Virginia School Report Card, a higher percentage of black and Hispanic students in Prince William passed the English and math SOL exams last year than did their counterparts in Fairfax and Loudoun. (The state is scheduled to release data today based on more recent test results.)

Some Prince William schools that have comparatively high percentages of low-income students and minorities performed nearly as well as those with more homogeneous and well-off student bodies. At Woodbridge Senior High School, for instance, where more than half the students are minorities and 22 percent are economically disadvantaged, the average SAT score was 1529 -- the fourth best in the county. Brentsville High had the best score, with 1573, followed by Battlefield High in Haymarket, with 1546, and Osbourn Park High in Manassas, with 1544.

Woodbridge Principal Alan Ross credits his school's relatively high marks to the increased inclusion of students in AP classes, which encourage younger students to take the PSAT, and to teacher training. Woodbridge teachers took a series of workshops on improving instruction for low-income and minority students.

Brentsville Principal Alex Carter said he credits his school's unusual math curriculum, which emphasizes problem and concept solving rather than rote learning.

Sixteen Fairfax high schools scored better than Brentsville. Excluding Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology -- a Governor's School that admits students from across Northern Virginia based on applications -- Langley High School had the highest score in Fairfax, with 1804. Thomas Jefferson's average was 2,155.