Rockdale students' SAT scores are still below the state average but are headed in the right direction, increasing seven points compared to the previous year.

SAT scores for high schools around the state have just been released for the Class of 2012 by the College Board. Rockdale County Public Schools’ average increased by seven points to 1356. Students in Georgia scored an average of 1,452, up from 1,445 last year, marking the end of a five-year slide in the state. The national average was 1,498, two points lower than last year. The highest possible score is 2,400.

Of the three main high schools, Heritage High had the highest mean scores in Critical Reading, Math, and Writing (472, 472, and 456 respectively), followed by Rockdale County High School (458, 454, 441) and then Salem High  School (449, 428, 429). RCHS had the highest number of test takers with 284, and then Heritage at 218, and Salem at 188.

About 690 student took the test this year, down from about 752 students last year.

Superintendent Richard Autry said, “We may be seeing the initial signs of incremental progress; however, the gap between us, the state and the nation is still too large." 

“We continue to advise students and parents on the necessary steps to be successful with college entrance exams. Successful completion of upper level core content courses such as American Literature, Advanced Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics is critical to being well prepared for the SAT. We are finding that many of our students are taking this test before they have completed many of these high school core content courses.”  

“I am pleased to note that our Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology students have significantly raised their composite score to 1879, the highest since being reported as a separate school three years ago,” said Autry. 

Increases in the SAT averages across the state were seen even as the rate of students taking the test increased by one percentage point to 81 percent, compared to the national average test-taking rate of 31 percent. States with higher participation rates typically see lower average scores on the SAT and often see dips when the number of students taking the exam increases. Georgia has the seventh highest participation rate in the nation.

This year Georgia also saw the largest and most diverse group of graduating seniors in state history. Of the state’s 2012 college-bound seniors who took the SAT, 47 percent were minority students, up from 46 percent in 2011 and 39 percent in 2007.

“I’m extremely pleased that SAT scores increased so much this year,” said State School Superintendent Dr. John Barge. “We jumped ahead of several states in our overall score, even as we saw our participation rate continue to increase.”

Closing the Achievement Gap

Minority students in Georgia's schools continue to outperform their peers across the country on the SAT. The 2012 SAT report shows that African-American and Hispanic students in Georgia are outperforming those subgroups nationally.
 
Georgia’s African-American students outscored their counterparts nationwide on two of the three SAT subsections. Mean critical reading scores for Georgia’s African-American students are three points higher and mean writing scores are two points higher than that of African-American students nationwide.

Hispanic students in Georgia’s schools outperformed their counterparts nationwide on all three of the SAT subsections. Mean critical reading scores for Georgia’s Hispanic students are 22 points higher, mean mathematics scores are 11 points higher, and mean writing scores are 14 points higher than Hispanic students nationwide.

The difference between the scores of African-American and white students - called "the achievement gap" - is 270 points in Georgia, which is 35 points smaller than the achievement gap nationwide of 305. The gap between the scores of Hispanic and white students in Georgia is 148 points, 78 points lower than the nation (226).