TimesLeader.com

Trail speaks out against SAT report

Mauri Rapp Abington Journal Correspondent

A local school district’s administration is speaking out against recently published reports that said the district was behind the state and national average in SAT scores. An article which appeared in The Times-Tribune on Oct. 7 showed that Lackawanna Trail School District was one of 32 local districts that scored below the state and national average.

At Lackawanna Trail’s board of education meeting on Oct. 19, district curriculum coordinator Janice Joyce and high school Principal John Rushefski said that while the statistics show the district as scoring below average, other variables should be considered. “It was never meant to be a comparison of one student against another,” said Joyce of the test. “It was supposed to be intended to determine if a student is ready for college.” Both Joyce and Rushefski stated that the SAT was also not intended to be a comparison of schools.

According to the state Department of Education, the district’s average combined verbal and math SAT score for 2009 was 930. The state average is 994, while the national average is 1016.

However, said Rushefski, more than 70 percent of Lackawanna Trail seniors took the test in 2009. Rushefski put this comparison in perspective by showing that the number of students at similarly-sized neighboring school districts was much lower; for example, 64 students from Mountain View School District took the SAT in 2009 for a total of 52 percent of the senior class. Mountain View’s average combined SAT score for 2009 was 1003. At Susquehanna Community School District 36 students took the test for a total of 40 percent while at Elk Lake School District, 47 students took the SAT for a total of 52 percent. Susquehanna and Elk Lake scored averages of 977 and 963, respectively. Furthermore, Rushefski showed that if lower scoring students had not taken the SAT, the district’s average would have risen past the state average while staying near or equal to the same percentage of students that took the test at neighboring schools. “That’s not what we do at Trail, though,” said Rushefski. “We’re not telling students not to take the SAT.”

Assistant Principal Tania Skotleski added that lower scoring students still continued on to college. Skotleski also cited statistics from the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, which issued a press release on Oct. 8 that stated more than 700 nationally accredited colleges and universities are beginning to discount SAT scores for college admissions. Rushefski said that the administration was proud that, consistently, more than 70 percent of Lackawanna Trail students were taking the SAT each year. “This is not a new thing,” he said.