SAT scores show mixed results on whether Colorado juniors are on track for college

About six in 10 Colorado high school juniors are on track to be ready for college-level English classes, while only four in 10 are for math courses, according to state data released Thursday.

That is according to results of the SAT college entrance exam, which Colorado requires juniors to take. The results are used to hold schools and districts accountable for their performance.

Colorado eleventh graders scored an average of 513.4 on the SAT’s English exam — 33 points above the test-maker’s cutoff for college readiness, state data show.

The picture was bleaker in math: The average score was 500.9, and the college readiness score is 530. Colorado students on average perform better in English than in math on state tests in lower grades, too.

As with other tests, achievement gaps emerged. The state’s poorest students — those who qualify for government-subsidized meals — scored an average of 462 on the English test and 451 on the math test. Their more affluent peers scored more than 70 points higher on both tests.

The state publicly releases average scores as the benchmark for SAT performance. At Chalkbeat’s request, state officials also provided the percentages of students who are on pace to be prepared for college courses — 61 percent in English and 40 percent in math.

An education department spokesman said officials are still working on figuring out how particular student groups fared, including different racial and ethnic groups, and breaking down results by subsidized lunch status.

The SAT numbers serve as a new baseline in Colorado. Juniors took the SAT for the first time in 2017 as a mandatory state test. Previously, juniors took the ACT. The state’s average ACT score hit an all-time high of 20.4 points in 2016, the last year it was administered by the state.

The state’s switch to the SAT followed an overhaul of the testing system after thousands of families boycotted the state’s participation in the multi-state PARCC exams.

State officials switched to the SAT in part because the recently redesigned college entrance exam is supposed to be more closely aligned to the state’s academic standards. Those grade-level learning targets are supposed to prepare students for life after high school.

While students can use the results as part of the college applications, the state uses the data to rate school quality, and some districts use them in teacher job performance ratings.

This was the second year high school sophomores took the PSAT, a companion test to the SAT also created by the College Board.

The state’s average score — which combines results from the math and the English test — climbed by nearly 4 points to 947. That’s 14 points higher than the national average. The highest score possible on the PSAT is 1520.

About 67 percent of sophomores are on track for being ready for college English work and 43 percent are on track for college-level math work.

Next year, high school freshmen are expected to take another version of the PSAT for the first time. That’s the result of a hard-fought compromise between state lawmakers who wanted to ditch testing in the ninth grade and Gov. John Hickenlooper, who threatened to veto any such effort.