State Superintendent say results
mark start of new trend line
Virginia’s 2017 public high school seniors outperformed their national peers in reading, writing and mathematics on the revamped SAT. The College Board revised the college admissions test last year to better align the assessment with content students actually learn in high school and skills and knowledge identified as important to success in college.
The commonwealth’s public-school graduates outscored their nationwide peers on both required sections of the college-admissions test, as follows:
Virginia’s public school mean score of 558 on the reading and writing section was 31 points higher than the national mean for public school students.
Virginia’s public school mean score in mathematics of 538 was 21 points higher. Virginia’s public-school total mean score of 1095 was 51 points higher.
Sixty-three percent of Virginia’s 2017 public school graduates took the SAT, which is the predominant admissions test in Virginia, and is considered a key indicator of the effectiveness of schools in preparing students for the first year of college.
Because of the changes in the design of the SAT, the performance of 2017 graduates can’t be compared with the achievement of graduates in previous years.
“Virginia students begin this new SAT trend line achieving at levels well above their peers nationwide,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Steven R. Staples said. “Our challenge moving forward is to narrow — and ultimately close — the achievement gaps evident in these results and make sure all of our students are college and career ready when they complete high school.”
Of the 51,613 Virginia public school 2017 graduates who took the SAT, 52 percent met or exceeded the SAT’s college-readiness benchmarks in both reading and writing, and mathematics.
Nationwide, 43 percent of SAT takers met the readiness standard on both sections of the test. The College Board also recently reported that 48,108, or 67 percent, of the 71,940 Virginia public high school students who took at least one Advanced Placement examination during 2016-2017 earned at least one score of three or higher, generally qualifying for college credit. Virginia public school students took a total of 143,221 AP exams during the year.
-Submitted by Charles B. Pyle, Director of Communications
