Students starting college this week posted some of the lowest reading and math scores on the SAT college admissions exam in recent years - a dismal trend reflected in New York City and across the country.
Testmaker College Board attributed the drop, in part, to increases in the number of poor students and students whose first language is not English taking the test. The College Board, which released the scores yesterday, called the Class of 2007 high school grads the largest and most diverse group ever to take the competitive exam.
Of the 1.5 million students who took the test this year, 24% did not identify English exclusively as their first language compared with 17% a decade ago. The College Board said 35% of test-takers will be the first in their families to go to college.
The real question is whether these students were educated in U.S. government schools or not. It shouldn't matter if English wasn't their first language if they were educated in U.S. schools, they should be fluent in reading, writing and speaking English. As for mathematics, language shouldn't matter, except maybe for word problems.
Here is a copy of the report documenting national SAT scores.
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