Editorial: The College Board’s new SAT is a step in the right direction

According to a report released Tuesday by the College Board, the average SAT scores this year showed little signs of improvement from years past.

“Flat and stagnant would be the words that we would use,” said Cyndie Schmeiser, the College Board’s chief of assessment.

Students averaged a 497 in reading, 513 in math and 487 in writing in 2014. When combined, that’s an average SAT score of 1497 out of 2400. And of all test-takers this year, 42.6 percent reached the College Board’s “College and Career Readiness Benchmark,” which is a score of 1550 — a percentage that has also remained static over the years, according to the College Board.

However, while scores have remained unimproved, the number of test-takers has increased. 1.67 million students took the SAT this year, compared to 1.65 million last year. Much of this increase is due to a higher number of minority test-takers — 793,986 minority students took the test this year, which is 31,475 more than last year.

Unfortunately, the gap between scores among minority students and non-minority students is fairly large. Of all black students who took the SAT, only 15.8 percent met the College Board’s benchmark score, and of Hispanics, only 23.4 percent. 

On the other hand, trends regarding Advanced Placement test scores this year looked promising. Of the 1.48 million students who took at least one AP exam in 2014, 13.2 percent scored a three or higher — which is almost doubled from 7.6 percent in 2004. There was also a 7 percent increase in the number of minority and low-income students who took an AP exam this year.

So, why are scores on the AP tests increasing, along with the amount of minority and low-income test-takers, but SAT scores remain stagnant?

The answer is that the SAT exam, as many now know, favors students in higher-income brackets — and, proportionally, white students.

The College Board’s own data shows this. Scores are directly proportional to income because test-prep for the SAT is expensive. Books and classes can cost a student and his or her family hundreds of dollars.

Many low-income and minority students simply don’t have the resources, or even the time, to prepare for the SAT in its current structure.

Thankfully, the College Board has caught on.

An overhaul of the SAT is set to take place in 2016 — one that will test students more on what they learn in school, instead of what they gain from text prep outside of school.

The new version of the test will help encourage deeper engagement with their schoolwork, according to the College Board. They plan to make the test shorter by focusing more on academic words, decreasing multiple-choice answers from five choices to four and making the essay portion optional.

Overall, the changes will make the SAT more like an AP test — reflecting what students learn in classrooms and giving them a chance to prepare for the test during actual school hours. This is essential, especially for low-income and minority students who simply don’t have the means to prepare for the SAT outside of school.

While this change will not even begin to scratch the surface of the problems facing our education system, it is a positive step in the right direction towards equality in education.