State SAT scores drop

South Carolina public and private high school seniors' scores on the SAT college entrance exam fell for the second consecutive year while scores across the country were flat, according to results released Monday by the College Board.

Average SAT scores for all students, including those in public, private and home schools, dropped five points to 1,447, while public school seniors scores were down two points to 1,443. The national average for all students was 1,509; a perfect score is 2,400, or 800 on each of the exam's critical reading, math and writing sections.

The state also saw an increase in the number of public school students taking the exam, up 5.3 percent compared with the national average of 2.1 percent. Many of those students were Hispanic, and more than one-third of the state's test-takers said they were the first in their families who would go to college.

"South Carolina is doing dramatically better with access," said State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex in a statement. "More minority and low-income students are aiming for college than ever before, and many more of those students are taking the SAT, ACT and AP exams."

Still, the state needs to work on increasing its scores while its participation grows, he said. More students taking the exam often leads to lower scores, and state educators need to figure out how to boost SAT scores while that happens, he said. Sixty-six percent of the state's students take the exam, making it the 14th-highest participation rate in the country, and its overall national ranking is 49th, ahead of Maine and Washington, D.C.

The SAT is one of two college entrance exams that students take. The

SAT measures how students think based on experiences in and out of classrooms, while the ACT is a curriculum-based achievement test designed to measure academic skills taught in schools. ACT scores released about a month ago showed the state's composite score was unchanged from last year, while Lowcountry students' scores were mixed, with some posting improvements and others dropping.

In Lowcountry school districts, public school students fared worse on the SAT exam than the previous year. Berkeley County schools tested about 33 percent of its seniors, and its composite score fell nine points to 1,426.

Charleston County schools tested 62 percent of its seniors, and its students saw the biggest drop locally in their composite score, down 13 points to 1,441. Suburban Dorchester 2 tested half of its seniors, and its composite score declined 12 points to 1,466. Rural Dorchester 4, which has only one high school, tested 15 seniors, and their composite score improved 122 points to 1,378 from the previous class.

Only four local high schools -- Hanahan High in Berkeley and Academic Magnet High, School of the Arts and Wando High in Charleston -- were among the 38 statewide to exceed the national average for public schools students.

Charleston Chief Academic Officer Doug Gepford said district leaders recognize they need to do more to prepare students for these types of exams and that they are beginning to talk about boosting math instruction as they have literacy instruction. The district started new programs and expanded others to ensure that students will have the reading skills needed to be successful, and Gepford said the same may be done with math, which would hopefully affect college-bound children.

"I'm not pleased at the outcomes; we want the trend to go the other direction," said Gepford, adding that he was glad to see an increase in the number of students taking the exam.

The College Board also released seniors' scores on Advanced Placement exams, and South Carolina's public school students continued to show improvement. A total of 15,802 exams scored high enough to earn college credit, a 5.6 percent increase from last year, and the number of exams attempted rose 8.7 percent to 28,763.

The College Board will release local district and school AP results later this fall.