Oregon’s scores on the SAT college entrance exam continue to outpace the national average. But the context for Tuesday’s scores is complicated.
The SAT changed to a version aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Students who took the test before January took the old version. Students who took it later got the new one.
Officials crunched the scores to come up with comparable averages. For Oregon, those show average reading scores are the same as a year ago, while math and writing dipped slightly.
The deputy superintendent of public instruction Salam Noor called for more Latino students to take the exam.
“From an equity perspective, we would like to see higher participation by some of our historically underserved student populations,” Noor said in a statement.
But one of the country’s leading test prep companies says colleges are not sold on the new SAT. Kaplan Test Prep says less than one-third of college admissions officers see the new SAT as an improvement.
The SAT exam isn’t required in Oregon. But a high score can satisfy the “essential skills” requirement for an Oregon diploma.
Copyright 2016 Oregon Public Broadcasting
