In a fourth of the state’s high schools, less than 60 percent of seniors took the SAT last year, with the rest cutting themselves off from the chance to gain admission to most US colleges.</p>
<p>The findings, based on a Globe review of state records, come as other states are putting a greater emphasis on the SAT or ACT college entrance exams, with some making one of them mandatory. Education officials in states such as Maine, which for the first time last spring required all juniors to take the SAT , worry that a fixation on other standardized exams has obscured the need to push students to take the college entrance test and pursue higher education.</p>
<p>Massachusetts takes pride in its high SAT participation – 79 percent of graduating seniors took the test last year, one of the highest rates in the country. But, according to the Globe analysis of nearly 330 high schools with SAT scores in the state, more affluent cities and towns are responsible for much of that accomplishment. Schools such as Weston, Winchester, and Wayland tested 100 percent of seniors.</p>
<p>Many of the 82 high schools that had less than 60 percent of seniors take the SAT serve some of the state’s poorest students, the Globe found. Many have a high enrollment of black or Hispanic students. About half of the schools with low rates are regular non vocational high schools: In Lawrence, Holyoke, and Chelsea high schools, barely half of the students took the SAT.</p>
<p>In many cases, even as their SAT participation rates remained low, schools were making significant strides in raising MCAS scores. In 2006 at Somerville High, where 94 percent of the seniors passed the 10th-grade MCAS required to graduate, barely half took the SAT. At Boston’s Brighton and Charlestown high schools, also lauded for boosting MCAS scores, less than 60 percent took the test.</p>
<p>“These are kids that are going to be low-wage workers unless they take the SAT,” said Miren Uriarte , director of the Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. “The kids that are not aware of all the options are sort of left behind.”</p>
<p>Researchers say low test-taking rates are a symptom of a bigger problem: High schools vary widely in how much attention they put on college preparation. Some work to send virtually all students to four-year colleges, while others guide a small percentage in that direction.</p>
<p>Boston has been requiring its sophomores and juniors to take the PSAT, a practice test. The school system has also increased graduation requirements to better prepare all students for college. But school officials say they still have to work to persuade some students to take the SAT and aspire to college because their grades are low, or their parents never went to college.</p>
<p>Nationwide, almost 81 percent of colleges and universities use the SAT for admission, according to the College Board, which owns the test and offers to waive the $41.50 test-taking fee for needy students.</p>
<p>Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said he would like to see the SAT-taking rate increase, but he doesn’t think the state can afford to pay for all students to take it at this time .</p>
<p>“As much as we brag about the high percentage of kids who take the SAT, we are concerned about the minority and poor kids who don’t,” said Driscoll. “It’s a problem.”</p>
<p>Last spring, Maine scrapped its 11th-grade state test and paid for every junior to take the SAT instead, arguing that the college entrance exam is something students can put toward their future. About 95 percent of juniors showed up for the test, officials of the state’s education department said.</p>
<p>Maine’s Education Commissioner, Susan A. Gendron , acknowledged that not all students will apply to four-year colleges, saying some are not ready and others want to go to work or a two-year school. But the state wanted to make sure they all had the opportunity, she said.</p>
<p>Gendron said a friend of her son’s never thought he was college material until he got his SAT scores. “Every state should be thinking about this,” she said.</p>
<p>The Globe studied the test-taking rates of public high schools, including regular, vocational, and charter schools, where the scores were reported by the College Board. Some alternative schools and others had no students take the test last school year. The Globe reviewed results from the 2003-04, 2004-05, and 2005-06 school years.</p>
<p>Last school year, 29 high schools tested 100 percent of their seniors. Most were in wealthy towns, along with several small, urban charter schools, and Boston’s elite exam schools. Cambridge Rindge and Latin also was an exception: It had more than 80 percent of seniors take the test, even though 43 percent of the school’s students were low-income.</p>
<p>But in neighboring Somerville, where a majority of students are low-income, barely half of the students take the test, a rate that has hardly budged in three years and has become a growing concern at the school.</p>
<p>Somerville guidance supervisor Carolyn Richards said she would like the rate to be closer to 70 percent , and wants the students in the school’s vocational program to be encouraged to take the test as well.</p>
<p>This year, Somerville is offering free SAT prep classes to juniors and seniors on campus, and rewarding good attendance with movie passes and mall gift certificates. Guidance counselors are personally inviting students to enroll.</p>
<p>Manpreet Pabla , 16, a Somerville junior, said the school’s guidance is key since her immigrant parents, who are originally from India, are unfamiliar with the American college system. “I told my mom,” she said of the SAT. “She just knows it’s a test. She doesn’t know a lot about it.”</p>
<p>Somerville counselor Stephanie Dinatali said she wants to make sure that students are academically prepared to take the test, and then see test-taking rates increase as a result. Otherwise, she said, struggling students who take the SAT and perform poorly could be discouraged from considering college.</p>
<p>In Boston, in addition to some of the large high schools, several of the city’s new small-sized high schools had low test-taking rates. In recent years, the city began dividing several of its large high schools into multiple small schools, hoping more attention and career themes would improve academic achievement.</p>
<p>The Social Justice Academy , part of the former Hyde Park High, tested 12 percent of seniors last school year. The Engineering School, in the same building, tested 14 percent of seniors, but hopes to double the test-takers this year by tutoring students and encouraging them to enroll in calculus and other advanced classes at a nearby private college.</p>
<p>“I’m not proud of the number of students that have taken the SAT, but I am extremely hopeful and positive that those numbers are going to increase each year,” said headmaster Mweusi Willingham. He said the school’s rate was low last school year partly because of students’ low grades and a high number of special education students.</p>
<p>Chris Coxon , Boston’s deputy superintendent, said SAT rates have improved, but he would like to have at least 80 percent of students taking the SAT. He gathered school officials this month to discuss ways to improve test-taking rates.</p>
<p>College professors and advocates said, despite criticism of the SAT as a college-entrance requirement, a school’s test-taking rate is an indicator of how serious a school is about preparing students for college.</p>
<p>They say the state should hold schools accountable for low test-taking rates. Students who are the first in their family to consider college are mired in confusion: Often their parents don’t know what the SAT is, they noted.</p>
<p>“The MCAS, they know,” said Samuel Hurtado , coordinator of the Latino Education Action Network, part of Massachusetts Advocates for Children. “But they don’t know what you have to do to make it to college.”