The big 1985 gain, along with modest increases since 1980 when SAT scores sank to an all-time low of 890, had been widely hailed as evidence that current education reform efforts were starting to pay off in better student performance.
Before that, the 17-year plunge from a peak of 980 in 1963 to the 1980 low was regarded as proof of the decline of the nation's schools.
To the dismay of many educators, the SAT has achieved a statistical majesty similar to the Dow Jones industrial average or the Gross National Product. The public tends to regard the SAT as a single number capable of summing up the health, or lack of it, of the nation's schools.
College Board President George H. Hanford cautioned in an interview against reading too much into a one-year pause in the SAT's upward progress.
"One year's results aren't significant. What is significant is what happens over time. Last year's increases were pretty good. What is significant is that scores haven't gone down in a while," he said.
South Dakota, where only three percent of seniors take the test, posted the highest average combined score of 1098--567 math, 531 verbal. South Carolina had the lowest average--431 math, 395 verbal, 826 combined--but 49 percent took the exam.
Meanwhile, the American College Testing Program in Iowa City, which sponsors that rival ACT college admissions exam, reported that the approximately one million students taking that test improved their average composite score by 0.2 to 18.8, the highest level in a decade. The four-part exam, scored on a scale of 1-35, is the predominant test in 28 states, mostly in the West and Midwest. ACT President Oluf M. Davidsen attributed the improvement to stiffer high school graduation requirements being enacted in many states. RUTGERS
Kegless Homecoming Makes Mess
A ban on kegs at Rutgers Homecoming tailgate parties did not produce less drinking last weekend, but merely increased litter, according to The Daily Targum, the campus newpaper.
High-spirited partiers faced a dearth of trash containers, and the result was unsightly trash surrounding drunken carousers.
"Fans will drink no matter what regulations are imposed--excepting of course, a ban on alcohol," a Targum editorial stated. "We recommend that [Rutgers officials] provide extra bags and trashs cans to help clean up the mess thay have helped to cause."