Thought this was an interesting story considering that NM has one of the poorest education standards in the nation..The Associated Press
SANTA FE? New Mexico high school students scored higher than average compared to their peers this year on the SAT, the nation's most-popular college entrance exam.
Nationally, the high school class of 2003 achieved the best score on the math section of the SAT exam in at least 36 years, while students' verbal scores hit a 16-year high.
The College Board, which owns the SAT, said Tuesday this year's high school graduates had an average cumulative score of 1,026 on the SAT, up six points from 2002. Both the average math and verbal scores were up three points from last year.
Overall, this year's average math scores are the highest the College Board could document since at least 1967. The College Board altered the way it scores the test in 1995, but in Tuesday's report, scores prior to that year were recalculated to reflect the changes. The board was unable to provide statistically adjusted scores prior to 1967. The SAT was first given in 1926.
Girls have improved notably in math over the last decade, with their average scores increasing 19 points to 503. Boys' math scores have gone up 13 points over the same period of time to 537.
The board said 54 percent of the test-takers were girls and 46 percent boys.
On a scale of 200 to 800, New Mexico students averaged 548 on the verbal portion of the test and 540 on the math portion, compared with national averages of 507 on verbal and 519 on math.
Some 2,617 or 14 percent of New Mexico's high school graduates? three-quarters of them from public schools? took the SAT. Nationally, 83 percent of public school students take the SAT.
The scores from New Mexico's public school students also exceeded the national averages at 541 on verbal and 532 on math. The national averages for public school students were 503 verbal and 513 math.
More of New Mexico's graduating seniors take a competing college entrance exam, the ACT. Sixty-two percent of the state's high school seniors, 11,871 students, took the ACT this year.
The state Department of Education reported Tuesday that this year's verbal and math SAT scores for American Indian students dropped to a five-year low, at 419 for verbal and 416 for math. Black students' scores also dropped from last year, to 450 in verbal and 426 in math.
Nationally, scores for black and Indian students went up this year.
Michael Davis, New Mexico state schools superintendent, said, "The key message from this year's SAT scores is that too many of our minorities are under-challenged, and the achievement gap is widening."
~ver
