Georgia SATs Down for a Third Year
A new report from The College Board, which administers the SAT to prospective college students, reveals the average Georgia score dropped to 1,460, down six points from 2008 and 12 points from 2007.
Georgia’s 1,460 is below the national average of 1,509, which is down two points from last year. A perfect score is 2,400 – 800 in three different categories: critical reading, math, and writing.
The state lags farther behind in the national average for math (24 points) compared to reading (11 points) and writing (14 points).
One bright spot: African-Americans in public schools averaged 1,274 and Hispanics in public schools averaged 1,412, which is 10 points and 66 points above the national average, respectively.
“It is good news that our African-American and Hispanic students are doing better than their peers nationally,” State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox said in a statement Tuesday. “But Georgia is a very diverse state and if we are serious about raising our SAT scores, we must be fully committed to closing the achievement gap.”
African-American and Hispanic public school students also beat the national average when it comes to the “achievement gap,” the difference in scores between minority students and white students.
The gap between African-American students and white students is 274 points in Georgia, 34 points smaller than the national average while the gap between Hispanic students and white students is 136 points, 90 points smaller than the national average.
“We certainly should be pleased that our achievement gap is smaller than the nation’s, but we should not be satisfied with 274 and 136 point gaps,” Superintendent Cox said. “Clearly we must maintain – and expand – our commitment to providing all students a world-class education.”
Read more from the Georgia Department of Education on today’s numbers.