TEA News Releases Online

 Sept. 24, 2012

SAT participation climbs in Texas  

AUSTIN – Over the past five years, Texas experienced a dramatic increase in the number of Hispanic and African-American public school students taking the SAT, a sign that more Texans are considering enrolling in college.

New data released today by the College Board shows the number of Hispanic test takers in Texas public schools increased by 65 percent between the 2007-2008 school year and last school year.

The number of African-American public school students taking the SAT increased by 42 percent, while Asian participation increased by 29 percent during this same. The number of white SAT test takers increased by 9 percent.

“We are clearly building a college-going culture in Texas.  The increased minority participation is important to the health of this state because of our changing demographics,” said Commissioner of Education Michael L. Williams.

Hispanics were the largest ethnic group in last year’s senior class. There were 135,357 Hispanics in a total public school class of 298,379 students. The second largest group was white students with 105,829 enrolled.

Among last year’s graduating class, 156,486 public school students or 58 percent of the class took the SAT, a 5.7 percent increase in participation from the Class of 2011. When private school and home schooled students are included, the number grows to 172,802 or 62 percent of the seniors who took the three-part exam. That is a 4.1 percent increase in participation over the previous year.

Consistent with score patterns seen on the state’s new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STAAR™ end-of-course exams, Texas public school students earned their highest scores on the mathematics section of the SAT with the lowest scores earned on the writing exams.

Asian Texans earned the highest scores on each part of the test, which covers reading, mathematics and writing.

Twenty-one Texans in the Class of 2012 earned a perfect score of 2400 or 800 on each of the three sections. Eighteen members of the Class of 2011 had perfect scores.

However, scores for the Class of 2012 fell overall for public school students in Texas and nationally. When public, private and homeschooled students are all included, scores fell in Texas on all three parts and on two parts of the test nationally. Nationally, the mean mathematics score remained at 514.

Below are the scores for the Class of 2012.

According to the College Board, “It is common for mean scores to decline as the number of students taking an exam increases because more students of varied academic backgrounds are represented in the college-going process. This was the case in Texas, where initiatives designed to increase college-going have brought many more students into the testing process.”

Williams said, “While I am pleased with the increased participation, we must improve our students’ readiness for success in college. I am hopeful that changes the state has made in recent years to our curriculum standards, graduation requirements, assessment and accountability systems will result in improved performance.”

Texas ranked 19^th in public school student participation. Participation ranged from 100 percent in Delaware and Maine to 2 percent in North Dakota.  

Below are the scores for each major student group.

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