Well the College Board released the SAT results for the Class of 2008 the other day, which of course means that MCPS put out a press release. The headline touts, SAT Scores of Class of 2008 Outpace State and Nation: MCPS Seniors Continue to Outpace State, National Averages on SAT Scores and Student Participation Rates.
Buried farther down…both participation rates and composite average were slightly down. Last year increased minority participation rates were cited as the cause for flat or declining scores. This year it’s an increase in the numbers of students taking the ACT. Next year… sunspots?
And as one watchful parent noted on a listserv:
The 2008 Student Performance Target set by the Annual Report on Our Call to Action is a mean combined score of 1642, and the 2008 District Performance Target is that all high schools would attain the 1642 Student Performance Target for all students and all racial, ethnic and service groups.
Actual performance fell short. The 1642 target was met by only 8 schools for all students, 0 schools for African-American students, 2 schools for Hispanic students, 15 schools for white students and 0 schools for FARMS students.
Systemwide, the 2008 SAT mean combined score for African-Americans was 1336 and for Whites was 1740. The gap has widened since 2006.
Here was the Post’s report, on the front page of the Metro section (because this is important news around here.)
If you care to, take a close look at page 12 of MCPS’s SAT Scores of Class of 2008 and a few pages after that. Note the 300, 400 even 500 point gulfs within some schools and between some schools. Think about it next time you read an MPCS press release, or a boosterish quote from Jerry Weast.
[...] that with the cheerful spin offered by MCPS, as pointed out in my recent post, Pay Not Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain. (Dan, are you a reader?) The Post article shows the superintendent grasping for various theories [...]