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State SAT scores point to pattern of writer’s block
Indiana is 11 points below the U.S. average on newest addition to college admissions test
ANDY GAMMILL <a href="mailto:ANDY.GAMMILL@INDYSTAR.COM">ANDY.GAMMILL@INDYSTAR.COM</a></p>
<p>Despite ramped-up efforts to improve high school students’ writing skills, the state’s average writing SAT score still lags behind the national average by 11 points.
Indiana’s average scores followed the national trend and fell slightly this year, but all of the state’s average scores are below the rest of the nation on the most common test to predict college success.</p>
<p>“Overall, they’re very disappointing,” said Stan Jones, Indiana’s commissioner for higher education. “There’s no good news here, especially in the writing scores.”</p>
<p>Indiana’s average reading score was 497 – 5 points below the national average. The state’s average math score was 507 – 8 points below the national average. And in writing, Indiana’s average was 483, compared with the national average of 494.</p>
<p>Local school districts have put increased emphasis on reading and writing, such as an Indianapolis Public Schools initiative to require a block of reading at every elementary school and a new schoolwide system to grade writing at Hamilton Southeastern High School.</p>
<p>But those initiatives have not yet translated into higher test scores.</p>
<p>State education leaders said Tuesday’s release of SAT scores for 2007 graduates proves schools need to shore up their lessons in many areas. They fear the state’s high schools are not adequately preparing students for college.</p>
<p>Just hitting the state average in reading or math, for example, would make it hard for a student to get into many Indiana colleges and universities.</p>
<p>The state average math score of 507 would put a student among the least-prepared students – the bottom 25 percent – at both Indiana University and Purdue University.</p>
<p>Coming in at the state’s reading average score of 497 would put a student in the bottom 5 percent of students at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute or DePauw University in Greencastle.</p>
<p>College Board executives did not discuss specific state results during their news conference, but they said a variety of factors had caused the drop in the national average, including more students taking the tests who are less qualified to go to college.</p>
<p>All students in Maine, for instance, took the test last year, regardless of whether they intended to go to college.</p>
<p>“There’s no single reason that can explain these declines,” said Laurence Bunin, vice president of the College Board, which administers the test. “A lot of effects added up together are probably responsible for those declines.”</p>
<p>There were some successes within the results, however.</p>
<p>Center Grove High School in Johnson County pulled its writing scores up by six points and its overall SAT score by 27 points.</p>
<p>As at other area schools, students there have seen more writing assignments, even outside English classes.</p>
<p>“I hear from students all the time about how much more writing they’re doing,” said David Lawson, an English teacher at Center Grove.</p>
<p>But Lawson doesn’t believe the short essays, including the 25-minute timed SAT essay, measure a student’s writing abilities. They measure the student’s ability to quickly react to a prompt and organize a structure for the essay, he said.</p>
<p>At Carmel High School, teachers in all subjects make reading and writing assignments. The more practice students get, the school reasons, the better they will be.</p>
<p>The school’s 537 writing score on the test is well above the 483 state average, but it fell 3 points from last year, the first year in which the writing test was given.</p>
<p>Principal John Williams said the slight change is barely a blip in the school’s scores and said he’s proud of the work teachers have done to emphasize writing.</p>
<p>“We think that it’s like anything else: You give your attention to it, it’s going to get better,” he said. “We’re really pleased with them. Our kids have taken it to heart. Our teachers have done a great job.”