PROVIDENCE – R.I. Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green is calling for school districts to create “readiness action plans” to improve SAT and PSAT scores after results released Thursday showed that the 2018-2019 statewide average scores were only a slight improvement or a decline from the year before.
Rhode Island public school students who took the SAT in 2018-2019 scored an average of 474 in math and 483 in reading and writing, for a 957 average total score. The results represent a half percentage-point improvement in the reading and writing average scores, and a 0.9 percentage-point improvement in math, according to the R.I. Department of Education.
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Rhode Island’s SAT numbers fall below the national averages for 2018-2019, which are 528 in math and 531 in reading and writing, for a 1059 average total score, according to the College Board.
In addition, the Department of Education said only 50.5% of the more than 10,400 Rhode Island students who took the SAT in 2018-2019 met a math benchmark at which they are considered “college and career ready.” Only 31.2% of SAT takers hit the “college and career ready” benchmark for reading and writing.
The figures were even lower among certain groups of students, according to Department of Education data.
For instance, 26% of Latinos who took the SAT in 2018-2019 hit the “college and career ready” benchmark in reading and writing, down 2 percentage points from the year before. And 12% of Latinos hit the benchmark in the math portion of the SAT, down 1 percentage point.
Among blacks who took the SAT, 28% met the “college and career ready” benchmark for reading and writing, the same as the year before, while 10% hit the math benchmark, down 3 percentage points.
And among multilingual learners, only 2% met the benchmarks in both math and reading and writing, a 1 percentage-point decline in English language arts and unchanged in math.
“Too few of our students are graduating ready for college and career, particularly our differently abled students, multilingual students, and students of color,” Infante-Green said in a news release. “While our four-year statewide graduation rate is 84%, significantly fewer students are performing at a college-ready level on our state assessments.
“There is a disconnect, and I want to work with our partners across the state to set explicit goals to get our high school students where they need to be in order to be successful after graduation,” she said. “We need to do more – and we need to move faster – in order to close the gap, increase access to opportunity, and improve student outcomes.”
Infante-Green said the action plans assembled by school districts should be driven by data that the Department of Education has said it is making more accessible and transparent.
The department has adopted SAT and PSAT scores, as well as ACT and certain Advanced Placement tests, as part of its assessment of how schools are performing.
State education officials have also begun tracking student cohorts to better understand what is happening after they leave high school.
For example, the Department of Education said, of Rhode Island high school freshmen in the 2007-2008 school year, 81% graduated and 72% enrolled in a postsecondary school. A decade later, however, only 34% completed a postsecondary education, according to state data.
“Graduation is not the end goal for our students,” Infante-Green said. “The question is not ‘Are they graduating?’ but ‘Are they graduating with the tools and skills they need to be successful?’ That is the question we need to be asking, and we must continue to analyze the data and use it to inform the kind of teaching and learning practices that ensure that the answer is a resounding, ‘yes.’ ”
