ISSUE: SAT scores

OUR VIEW: Ranking states by scores is inaccurate indicator

South Carolina residents are familiar with SAT scores as a barometer of how prepared students are for college. The annual release of scores draws attention, but in the wrong way.

It's not so much the increase or decrease in scores by the state's students upon which opinions of our school system are based, it's how we rank against other states. South Carolina has a history of being near the bottom among states, prompting cries the state has "the nation's worst schools."

The latest release of scores showed a nationwide decline, with South Carolina's drop being less than the national dip. But what of the rankings?

Consider the state of Maine. If SAT scores are the indicator, that state now has the tag of "nation's worst schools."

Maine students showed a 105-point drop in average SAT score between 2006 and 2007. Maine's composite average of 1,388 is now 71 points below South Carolina's composite average of 1,459.

What happened in Maine? Beginning in spring 2006, the state started using the SAT as its federally required high school assessment. That meant the SAT was no longer an elective test as in other states. So when Maine's first graduating class of 100 percent SAT-takers had its scores reported, the state average fell dramatically.

Maine is not the only example. Mississippi is traditionally cited along with South Carolina as having poor schools. Yet based on SAT scores, Mississippi schools are better than those in not only Maine, but also Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Mississippi's average SAT score is 123 points higher than New Hampshire, 144 points higher than Connecticut, 191 points higher than Rhode Island and 289 points higher than Maine.

The SAT comparisons are apples to oranges. Sixty-eight percent of Rhode Island's high school seniors take the SAT. In New Hampshire, it's 83 percent, and in Connecticut, it's 84 percent. In Mississippi, it's only 4 percent, with other college-bound students opting for the ACT.

Mississippi, where presumably some of the brightest are taking the SAT as a requirement for their college of choice, will always rank higher than South Carolina, too, since 60 percent of our seniors take the test.

The dramatic difference in the number of students taking the test from state to state is a reason the College Board, which administers the SAT, warns against ranking states and their schools through the test results.

No one in South Carolina should be satisfied with our state's SAT results, but using the scores as a measure to label our educators and students as the nation's worst is inaccurate -- and wrong.

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