SAT math scores reach record high

Last year's seniors averaged 520 out of a possible 800 on the math portion, 2 points higher than the class of 2004. Average scores on the verbal section were unchanged at 508, according to results released Tuesday by the College Board, the nonprofit organization that owns the SAT.

In California, high school students' verbal scores rose from an average of 496 to 499, while math scores increased two points over last year to 521. The number of California students who took the exam this year rose more than 5 percent to 146,877, officials said.

While this year's nationwide increase was modest, "over the last 13 years the increase in math scores has been about 19 points, and that's fairly significant," said Wayne Camara, the group's director of research, at a news conference Tuesday.

The College Board also released its first glimpse of data on the new version of the SAT, which features a writing section with an essay, and which members of the class of 2006 began taking last spring. Those students appeared to find the new section the hardest, with average scores of 516, compared to 519 in critical reading (the new name for verbal) and 537 in math.

"Those scores will come down a little bit, the reason being the best and most aggressive students always take them in the spring," said College Board President Gaston Caperton.

For the class of 2005, scores improved for all ethnic groups, though significant gaps remain. Composite scores for black students rose 7 points to 864, but that remains more than 200 points below the average composite score for white students.

Over the last decade, composite scores for Asian-American students have shown the greatest improvement, increasing 44 points to 1091. Disparities in the kinds of courses taken by different groups remain a major obstacle to narrowing races gaps, the College Board said. It pointed out, for instance, that 44 percent of Asian-American students take calculus in high school, compared to just 14 percent of African-Americans.

"It's unfair to those kids who don't get to take those good courses and don't get the chance to go to college," Caperton said.

Camara said racial breakdowns for scores on the new writing test would not be released until next year, but he expects them to be narrower than on the other sections. Some critics have predicted the new writing section is biased against minority students and will exacerbate the gap.

The math scores come at a time when a variety of tests - on students of varying ages and measuring different kinds of skills - are presenting mixed signals about what if any progress American students are making in math.

Figures released in July from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed the nation's 9- and 13-year-olds recorded their highest math scores ever, but scores for 17-year-olds were flat.

A study released in December found U.S. eighth graders closing the gap with international peers in math and science. However, that study found fourth-graders slipping further behind. And another study released at about the same time found the United States below 20 of 29 industrialized nations in math.

"Math achievement is going up in the United States in the long term," said Jack Jennings, president of the independent Center on Education Policy in Washington, D.C. "It is not, however, where kids in the United States ought to be."

The ACT college entrance exam, a rival to the SAT that is more popular in about half the states, reported earlier this month that overall and math scores for the high school class of 2005 were unchanged from a year ago. Most colleges accept either test.

Scores on the SAT were "recentered" in 1995, which significantly increased students' average scores. The College Board then recalculated scores from previous years using the new system.

Officials said this year's math scores are the highest ever on that scale. However, the board had to use estimates to calculate average scores before 1972.

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