SAT scores in Forsyth dip a bit

The average total SAT score for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools fell seven points last year, but scores at six of the system's high schools showed improvement, according to results released yesterday.

Average scores for the Schools of Pre-Engineering, Biotechnology and Computer Technology at Atkins High School increased 64 points to 858, 62 points to 866 and 1 point to 826, respectively.

Parkland High School's average score increased 36 points to 907.

Reynolds High School's average score increased 19 points to 1,098, the highest average in the school system.

And Glenn High School's average score increased six points to 960.

Overall, however, the drop in local scores follows a trend in state and national averages.

The school system's Class of 2009 scored an average of 1,002 on the "traditional" SAT, down from 1,009 a year earlier. The traditional SAT is the critical-reading and math sections. Including the recently added third section -- writing -- the system's total was 1,484, down from 1,497.

The North Carolina average on the traditional SAT was 1,006, down a point. Including the writing section, the state total was 1,486, down three points.

In recent years, the local school system's averages have been slightly above the state average.

National averages were 1,016 and 1,509, respectively, after averaging 1,017 and 1,511 the previous year.

More than 1.5 million members of the Class of 2009 took the exam nationally.

The SAT was revised in 2005. The biggest change was the addition of a writing section, which requires students to write a short essay and answer multiple-choice questions about grammar. The verbal section was renamed critical reading, and math content was changed to include third-year college-prep math.

The highest possible score on the combined tests is 2,400.

In Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, 58 percent of seniors -- 1,883 students -- took the SAT, more than the 46 percent of seniors who took the test nationwide. In North Carolina, 63 percent of seniors took the SAT.

"As the College Board recommends, the school system has never used SAT scores to judge its performance. The ups and downs are more reflective of the differences in students taking the test from year to year," Superintendent Don Martin said. "But we also know how important a high score is to an individual student for college admission, so we'd like to see our long-term trend increase."

Local seniors' math scores decreased five points to 505, six points below the state average and 10 below the national average.

In critical reading, local students' scores were down two points to 497, two points above the state average and four points below the national average. On the writing test, local scores fell six points to 482, two points above the state average.

Between 1994 and 2004, scores tended to go up. More recently, the trend has been toward lower scores. In part, that is because more students are taking the test. However, the gaps among groups have been getting larger. On the three combined sections, men scored 27 points higher on average than did women, compared with 24 points higher the year before. That gap is largely attributable to men's higher math scores.

And although average scores for white students fell two points, average scores for black students fell four points.

The College Board, the designer of the SAT, released scores on tests taken by last year's seniors. The SAT includes critical reading, math and writing sections and is used by many colleges and universities to make decisions on admissions.

The College Board says that people should not use SAT results to compare the performance of students in different schools, school systems or states because not all students take the tests. States that have low percentages of students who take the tests often post the highest average SAT scores in the nation.

Unlike North Carolina's ABCs of Public Education, the SAT is not tied to the state's standard course of study. The ABCs are state-developed tests that measure how much students learn in a year. The SAT is designed to be an indicator of a student's success in college.

■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.