The College Board, stronghold of SAT scores and the educational "establishment," ordinarily would strike no one as either optimistic or loquacious. But the last few weeks have seen three major press pronouncements and distinctly upbeat mood emanating from the giant.

The board announced on Wednesday that its newly released data on the SAT scores of various ethnic groups showed that rising minority scores were largely responsible for the overall rise in scores nationwide.

3-Point Rise

That overall rise--of three points on, the 1600-point scale--had been happily released several weeks before, prompting some educators to speculate--albeit timidly--that recent efforts at curriculum reform might finally be paying off by improving the nation's decrepit school systems.

The new figures show that Black SAT-takers improved their scores more than whites over the past year. The average whites over the past year. The average Black score increased by nine points on the verbal and four on the math sections of the test, while whites average increased by only two on the verbal and none on the math.

Uproar

The second press conference a week ago, at which the board broke its longstanding policy not to release ethnic data breakdowns, disturbed some educators by publicizing that average minority scores in 1981 were considerably lower than that for whites.

It was partly to counteract that impression that the board quickly pulled together preliminary figures for 1982, showing the role minority increases had played in the upswing, and held a third press conference, according to Robert G. Cameron, the board's executive director for research and development.

Timing

Despite the apparent flurry of publicity, the release of ethnic data has actually been in the works for more than 18 months, Cameron said yesterday.

In the wake of the Bakke court derision, which led to a greater demand for quantitative data on minority students, the board's trustees began debating "whether we should keep basing access to these things on our own conception of the public interest," Cameron said.

The board had also been coming under increasing fire for secrecy, and the need to improve their image in the midst of the "truth-in-testing" furor eventually helped convince the trustees to change policy.

The board had submitted such figures to Congress in 1979 as part of testimony for a hearing on civil service testing, but had otherwise kept them secret out of worry that the figures could reflect badly on minorities and lead to "a self-fulfilling prophecy," Cameron said.

Signs of Hope

Officials responding to the unexpectedly cheering statistics have, so far, scrupulously avoided giving the impression that all is now well in American education. Rather, they stress the distance left to go.