Number and Diversity of SAT® Takers at All-Time High
Source: College Board
The College Board announced SAT® scores today for the class of 2007, the largest and most diverse class of SAT takers on record. Nearly 1.5 million students (1,494,531) in the class of 2007 took the SAT, and minority students comprised nearly four out of 10 test-takers.
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This year’s average score in critical reading is 502, a 1-point decline compared to last year, or a change of 0.20 percent. The average scores in mathematics and writing declined 3 points each compared to a year ago, bringing the scores to 515 and 494, or a change of 0.58 percent and 0.60 percent, respectively.

+ National and State Reports (PDFs)
+ Tables and Related Items (PDFs)
+ College Attendance Patterns (PDFs)
+ Using Aggregate Scores
+ College Board Psychometric Panel

A Lens That Distorts: NCLB’s faulty way of measuring school quality
Source: Hoover Institution (Education Now)

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) put schools under the microscope by requiring that they report, annually, the test-score performance of students in grades 3 through 8, and, again, for grade 10. As President Bush said shortly before he signed the bill into law, “We need to know whether a curriculum is working. We need to know whether the teachers, the methodology that teachers use is working. We need to know whether or not people are learning. And if they are, there will be hallelujahs all over the place. But if not, we intend to do something about it.”

Five years later, it has become clear that the microscope NCLB uses to get the information the president said he wanted contains a lens that distorts. Many good schools—both charter schools and inner-city public schools serving the disadvantaged—are not recognized as such, while many poorly performing schools are given a pass. If NCLB is to fulfill its mission, Congress needs to make some major repairs or risk seeing those opposed to all forms of school accountability assume control of the political battleground.

See: Will NCLB Hit the Wall? (Forum)

2007 ACT National and State Scores
Source: ACT, Inc.
From press release:

The national average ACT composite score rose in 2007 for the third time in the past five years. The percentage of U.S. high school graduates who are ready for college-level coursework continued to grow as well.

Members of the high school graduating class of 2007 who took the ACT—a record 1.3 million students—earned an average composite score of 21.2 on the college admission and placement exam, up from 20.8 in 2003 and from 21.1 last year. Scores improved on all four required subject-area tests included in the exam—English, mathematics, reading and science. Each test is scored on a scale of 1 to 36, with the composite score being the average of the four individual required test scores.

The results also suggest a growing number of U.S. high school graduates are prepared for college-level coursework. The percentage of ACT-tested graduates who met or surpassed ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks, indicating they are ready to succeed in specific first-year credit-bearing college courses, has improved over the past five years in all four subject areas.

+ 2007 ACT National Profile Report
+ College Readiness: Benchmarks Met
+ National Score Report Trends
+ State Profile Reports (PDFs)
+ 2007 Average ACT Scores by State
+ College Readiness by State