Sats

Baltimore County school officials are baffled by a 24-point drop in SAT scores for 2011 seniors, the sharpest decline in the Baltimore area in results released this week by the College Board. "It's always devastating, because you would like to keep a constant upward trajectory," Assistant Superintendent Barbara Walker said Thursday. "We were surprised, because it was a very smart class that pulled in a record amount of scholarship dollars. " Average critical reading scores on the test, considered an indicator of college readiness, dropped from 492 to 486, average math scores dropped from 499 to 490 and average writing scores dropped from 492 to 483. The county was below the state and national averages in every area.

Now that the Orioles have clinched the American League East title, the regular season is all over but the roster shuffling. The Orioles headed into Wednesday night trailing the Los Angeles Angels by three games for the top seed in the AL while leading the Detroit Tigers by seven games for the third seed. It puts the Orioles into a bit of a baseball limbo: Do they try to catch the Angels and not give their regulars as much rest over the next 11 games, or do they forget about trying to get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, be happy with the No. 2 seed and try to spell their regulars?

Declining scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test are not an indication that America's education system is getting worse, though the average verbal score reached an all-time low. Rather, it is an indication that even after a decade of so-called education reform, schools haven't gotten much better.It is not the first indication, either. While the SAT is criticized as a measure of school performance because it is taken only by a self-selected group of students who intend to apply to college, other tests based on representative samples of students show the same result.

If your grades and SAT scores are less than stellar, you still have a shot at getting into Goucher College with a two-minute video. Starting with applicants for next year's class, Goucher announced Thursday that it will give students the option of submitting a video they record in lieu of transcripts or college admission exams. Officials say the move is designed to help those who might have difficulty navigating the complexity of the college application process. Though colleges across the country have allowed students to submit videos as a supplement to their application, Goucher officials believe the college will be the first to judge applicants primarily on the video.

Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of high school seniors fell to a record low this year in the verbal section. The scores for the mathematics section also slipped. Maryland students' average scores slipped as well.Do you think that the SAT is a fair measure of a student's likely performance in college, or not? Do you think the declining scores reflect on the quality of schooling, or not?We'd like you to share your opinion by calling SUNDIAL.The call is free and must be made from a tone phone.

With anything as emotional as a test determining a young person's higher education prospects, job opportunities and earning ability, controversy abounds. The College Board's long-awaited changes to the 64-year-old Scholastic Aptitude Test are no exception.Critics at the Massachusetts-based Center for Fair and Open Testing have labeled cosmetic the proposed elimination of lists of words of opposite meanings, greater emphasis on reading comprehension, open-ended math problems, allowing students to use calculators and essay sections added to achievement tests.

There are two prevailing myths about the Scholastic Assessment Test, known until recently as the Scholastic Aptitude Test.One is that the results of the college entrance examination demonstrate a steady decline in American school achievement over much of this half of the century. The other (closely related) is that SAT scores show a decline in the quality of American schools over the same period.Both are probably true, but the SAT is no place to find the proof.When the current scoring system was established in 1941 (well before television, remember)

Howard County school officials are playing down the significance of last year's Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, which dropped even as state and national scores rose.As a group, the more than 1,600 high school seniors who took the SAT in 1993 posted a combined math and verbal score of 969 points, seven points lower than in 1992, when students scored 976 points, a local record.Yet last year's score is higher than the statewide score of 909 points, a two-point increase from the previous year, and higher than the national score of 902, a three-point increase from the previous year.

IF YOU want to know what's wrong with the press, take a look at the way it handled last week's release of scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.I'm not suggesting that you examine the scores themselves. They tell virtually nothing about America's school children.Instead, you should examine the hysterical press treatment of these unremarkable scores -- treatment that says more about the school-watchers than about the kids who took the test.The scores, released by the College Board, showed slight declines in what are constantly described -- misleadingly -- as "national averages" in math and verbal performance.

THE PEAK SAT time will be coming up shortly and the anxiety level of students and their parents is already rising. When will we really take a hard look at the College Board's entrance examination? Should the SAT be changed or de-emphasized or completely dropped as an admission requirement? Passion abounds on both sides -- from diehards who continue to maintain that it is the great equalizer to egalitarians who shout unfair discrimination. Lately, the issue has been further dramatized for me because over the past two years, three of my nine grandchildren have taken the SAT. They scored well and they are honor students.

A new November date for the SAT will conflict this fall with some state championships and the last regular-season football games in the MIAA A Conference, including the Gilman-McDonogh rivalry game. The athletes, however, still will have plenty of time to take the test in the fall if they plan ahead. The College Board moved the SAT date this year from the first Saturday of November to the second Saturday, Nov. 8 -- the date of state championships in cross country, field hockey and boys and girls soccer.

Ravens starting cornerback Lardarius Webb is expected to miss at least half the preseason with a lower back injury. Webb has been sidelined since experiencing back spasms during the second day of practice. The Ravens are holding out some hope that Webb, who had offseason sports hernia surgery, could be back by the third preseason game. "He's has some things going on in there that aren't long-term things," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. "I'm not going to give you the exact diagnosis of it, but it's probably as much as me as anything.

To the people at the College Board: Thank you for redesigning the SAT, effective spring 2016. No, seriously. Even though I will be the last class to take the regular SAT, I appreciate your kindness in not making future generations memorize words like "execrable" and "lassitude" and declining to take points off because I'm human and occasionally answer questions wrong. But while I thank you for trying to make it better, the only way to make the SAT perfect is to get rid of it. The SAT is a 225-minute race to the finish line encompassing everything schools have been trying to prepare students for since pre-school.

The efforts involved in redesigning the SAT are misdirected because there continues to be no rational basis for classifying test-takers in terms of the outcome ( "SAT to be redesigned, focus more on classroom learning," March 5). A knowledgeable test-maker can design a test to yield whatever average score is desired and to correlate test outcomes with an almost limitless set of criterion measures. But the plain fact is that correlation is not causation. Never was and never will be. Every human being alive is prepared to take the next step in his or her development throughout life.

The SAT — that anxiety-provoking test required for so many college applications — is being redesigned to focus more on classroom learning and less on brain teasers. The College Board announced Wednesday that its revised SAT will be ready in the spring of 2016. The new version will have two parts, "evidence-based reading and writing" and math, and will return to a highest possible score of 1600. An optional essay question will be graded separately. "I hope it takes some of the intense anxiety of this high-stakes exam away," said Barbara Gill, assistant vice president of undergraduate admissions at the University of Maryland, College Park and a College Board trustee.

Salisbury began the season on Sunday with a 14-3 rout of Greensboro without Luke Phipps, but the senior attackman will return for Saturday's home opener against Lynchburg. Phipps, who recorded nine goals and two assists as the fourth attackman last spring, slightly sprained his knee in the preseason, and coach Jim Berkman said the team opted to rest him rather than risk further injury. Phipps is expected to start on attack with senior Rhett DePol and sophomore Brady Dashiell. “[H]

EVERY school day, Tanika Rice spends 90 minutes working mind-bending calculus problems at the Laurence G. Paquin Middle/Senior High School.The high school senior is one of five students who are getting extra instruction in mathematics at the school.Her ritual will end this week as she joins 500,000 other students nationwide in taking the SAT on Saturday. The SAT, much-pilloried for being biased in favor of well-off white people, is at the center of the controversy over the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

On the heels of a wintry weather system that dropped less snow than expected in the Baltimore region Monday, a new batch of storm watches were set for Tuesday night into Wednesday, with a quarter of an inch of ice possible northwest of the city. Freezing rain is forecast in northern Baltimore County and Carroll County, with a wintry mix expected along the Interstate 95 corridor. Overnight lows are forecast a few degrees below freezing. The system marks a wet and wintry weather pattern that began with Monday's mix of rain and snow and is expected to continue into next week, though with weather warming relative to last month's polar outbreaks, there has been more uncertainty over what precipitation to expect.

The Maryland Department of Education defines a high school diploma as a 12-year course of study and achievement. Twelve years cannot be shortened, which is why the Baltimore City Department of Social Services had to go to Pennsylvania. There, what you know is more important than how long you sat in a classroom ( "Baltimore foster care youths get diploma in a day in Philadelphia," Nov. 23). I brought this problem to the attention of state officials in the 1980s, when my son scored a 1330 on the SAT at the age of 13. The Baltimore County officials would not allow him to attend college because he hadn't sat for 12 years in a school classroom.