ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996 TAG: 9611050042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
CAVE SPRING HIGH topped both national and state averages this year. Glenvar High and Patrick Henry High both had higher scores than last year.
Cave Spring High recorded the largest increases in Scholastic Assessment Test scores among Roanoke Valley schools in the first year under a new scoring system for the college entrance exam.
Cave Spring's average math score rose by 16 points and its verbal score by 13 points as the Roanoke County school topped national and state averages by a substantial margin in both categories
Glenvar High's math score also rose by 16 points, while its verbal score increased by 4 points.
In Roanoke, Patrick Henry High's math score rose by 8 points and its average verbal mark increased by 1 point.
Other high schools in the valley had smaller increases, no change or slight decreases in some cases.
The national average math score increased 2 points to 508, while the average verbal score increased 1 point to 505.
Under the new scoring system, Cave Spring's average scores were 530 for verbal and 520 for math, the highest in the Roanoke Valley in both categories.
Ben Helmandollar, supervisor of testing for Roanoke County schools, said Cave Spring has put more emphasis on the SAT and made curriculum changes to prepare students for it.
"They're aligning their curriculum to help students get ready," he said. "It's not teaching to the test, but they're making sure they cover some things that are included."
Cave Spring Principal Martha Cobble said the school was emphasizing all types of tests more and stressing to students the importance of scoring high on them. She said the school's guidance staff also is working more closely with students on preparing for the SAT and standardized tests.
"It is a teamwork approach - teachers, guidance counselors and everyone working together," Cobble said.
SAT scores were "recentered" this year, using a new method for calculating the scores that has resulted in moving up the averages.
Before, SAT scores were measured against the performance of the class of 1941, when the test was taken by only 10,000 largely well-to-do white males from Northeastern states, educated mainly at private schools.
This year, the scores were compared against a new reference group - 1 million students who graduated in 1990 - and the average score is near the midpoint of 500 on the 200-800 scale for the verbal and math sections.
The recentering moved the national averages up about 75 points on verbal and 25 points on math, without changing the relative standing of test-takers to each other, which is expressed as their percentile rank.
In 1995, the national averages were 428 on verbal and 482 on math under the old scoring system.
Recentering the scores reflects the demographics of the current pool of test-takers, according to the College Board, the nonprofit association that administers the exam.
With averages on both verbal and math near 500, College Board officials said, students immediately know where they stand in the test-taking population and have a better comparison of their verbal and math abilities.
Vella Wright, director of research, testing and evaluation for Roanoke schools, said SAT scores should not be used to rank high schools, although they are an element in the admission process at many colleges and universities.
"To draw conclusions about schools or judge the quality of education by SAT scores is invalid and somewhat distorted because they're not a complete picture," Wright said. "They're just one measure."
She noted that the College Board cautions that many factors can influence the scores and that using them for comparisons can be unfair. Family income, parental education and academic courses studied in high school can affect scores, according to College Board officials.
Wright said a school's average score does not indicate how the top 10 percent of students scored. In some cases, the top 10 percent score 100 points or more above the school's average, she said.
One of the most significant factors in interpreting SAT scores is the percentage of students taking the exam. In general, the higher the percentage of students taking the tests, the lower the average scores because not all of them are college-bound, according to the College Board.
But this was not the case at Cave Spring High, where 79 percent of the seniors took the exam this year, the highest participation rate among high schools in the valley.
In Virginia, 68 percent of seniors took the exam, compared with 41 percent in the nation. Virginia's average verbal score was 507, or 2 points above the national average. The state's math score was 496 - 12 points below the nation's average.
In some states, a very small percentage of college-bound seniors take the SAT. Usually, these students have a strong academic background and the states' scores are higher than the national average. In 1995, North Dakota had the highest average scores, for example, but only 5 percent of its seniors took the exam.
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: School assessment test. KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB