Virginia SAT scores rise, but racial gap remains

Associated Press:

Virginia's high school students improved their scorres on the verbal and math S-A-T in 2005.

The College Board said today that the average verbal score was 516 out of a possible 800 points, up a point from 515 last year. The average math score was 514, up from 509 the previous year.

Virginia's cumulative score was 1030, compared to the national average of 1028, according to the College Board, which owns and administers the Scholastic Assessment Test. Virginia's average verbal score was higher than last year's national average of 508, but math scores were lower than the national average of 520.

The math and verbal sections are each graded on a 200-point to 800-point scale.

Composite scores for Virginia students describing themselves as black rose eleven points to 865, up from 854 in 2004. But a racial gap remains. White students' scores rose to 1070, up from 1058; while students describing themselves as of Asian or Pacific Islander descent had an average composite score of 1071, up from 1063.

JoLynne DeMary, the state's superintendent of public instruction, says there's still work to be done to boost black students' scores. But she said the state continues see improves in "all subgroups."

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