How Are We Doing?

It is time to check and see how we, as a country, are doing in the field of education. I usually compare us in the international competency scores, but those scores have changed little. We, as a country, are still hovering around the average score which is a poor score considering our educational spending is competing for the top.

Tonight, I thought we would look at SAT scores. The SAT has been around for a long time. It measures math, verbal and now writing. I thought... let us see how we are doing now compared with how we were doing... say, 40 years ago. What do you think? With all the experts floating around talking to us about education, surely we ought to be far out in front of those prehistoric educators of the past, right?

Wrong! Let's start with the critical reading scores. The total reading scores are listed below (and found at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_142.asp).

1966-67 543
1976-77 507

Okay, the experts are coming... things have to get better, right?

1986-87 507
1998-97 505
2006-07 502
2007-08 502

Well, let's now look at math; surely those scores will be better with all the new discoveries and all.

1966-67 516
1976-77 496

Okay, things have to get better with all the advances made...

1986-87 501
1996-97 511
2006-07 515
200708 515

Okay, let's now look at writing.

2005-06 497
2006-07 494
2007-08 494

Let's summarize... from 1966 - 2008 SAT reading scores have dropped 47 points in reading, our math scores have dropped 1 point and in the last three years we have already lost 3 points in writing. Remember, these are college bound high school students taking these tests. These are also scores dominated by the public sector as there are just under 100,000 public schools, each large and getting larger, compared to around 29,000 smaller private schools. I could make the case that the private sector scores are actually pushing these scores slightly higher than they are... but I will save that for another day.

So, what does all this mean?

I will let you come to your own conclusions. Check out the website for the National Center for Educational Statistics for even more information, but be warned, the information is not going to bring you any comfort to the current state of your country's educational system. Blessings!