SAT Scores Decline in the District

More black, Hispanic and Asian students took the SAT this spring than in any previous year; minorities accounted for two-fifths of all test-takers.

The country as a whole hasn't performed this poorly on the SAT since 1999, when the combined reading and math score was 1016. Scores rose steadily in the first half of this decade but plunged for the Class of 2006 with the added writing section.

Since the peak with the Class of 2005, the national average has dropped six points, to 502 in verbal ability; five points, to 515 in math; and three points, to 494 on the writing section.

Critics of standardized testing point to the decline -- and the shortage of plausible explanations -- as evidence the new SAT is flawed.

If a more diverse testing pool is responsible for lower performance, they ask, then why did scores steadily rise in the first part of this decade, when the test-taking population was steadily diversifying?

The erosion "indicates that the College Board failed to keep its promise that the revised SAT would be comparable to the old test," said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. He said that participation in the rival ACT has increased by almost 10 percent since the revised SAT was introduced and that SAT participation has increased about 1 percent.

Students consistently report they are tired after sitting through the new test, which lasts 3 hours and 45 minutes. Last year, College Board officials noted a related decline in the number of students retaking the test, a trend that would seem to yield lower scores as SAT performance tends to rise on a student's second attempt.

Christopher Garran, principal of high-performing Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, said students are choosing not to retake the test "if their scores are around the average required by the colleges in which they are interested, because the test is so long."

Garran also said students are opting to take the SAT once and then take the ACT, rather than take the SAT two or three times. Last year, for the first time, Walter Johnson officials reported ACT averages on the school profile they send to colleges.

Sean Bulson, principal of neighboring Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, said his students "are hearing from college recruiters and the media that colleges are looking more at the whole student." In that environment, he said, "it has been difficult to maintain a sense of urgency among our very busy students to focus on these tests the way they did just a few years ago."

College Board officials said the one-year drop is statistically insignificant: The average score declined no more than three points on any section of the test, a quantity smaller than the value of a correct answer on one SAT multiple-choice question.

Staff writers Jay Mathews and Philip Rucker and researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.