A look at what SAT report on Camden means
CAMDEN A statistic released by the Camden School District - that three out of about 882 high school seniors scored "college ready" on the SAT in 2012 - sparked criticism and questions from education advocates last week.
The number, based on state performance reports from the 2011-12 school year, uses the College Board's college-readiness parameter score of 1550 out of 2400 on math, reading and writing.
The reports have been accessible since May, but the statistic about the three students was largely brought to public attention by superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard at Tuesday's school board advisory meeting.
While only the three students - one at Camden High School and two at Brimm Medical Arts High School - scored 1550 or higher, only 42 percent of Camden High School seniors took the test. Nationally, 43 percent of students met the benchmark.
"The College Board's definition of college-ready is a relatively new initiative," said Robert Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. "It's really a self-promotional tool to get people to pay more attention to SAT scores at a time when their product has been overtaken in the marketplace by the ACT and as colleges, by large numbers, are dropping testing completely."
The College Board said its 1550 score is associated with a 65 percent probability of obtaining a first-year average of B-minus or higher, and is based on a sample of student performance at four-year colleges.
"If a student does not meet the SAT benchmark score of 1550, it does not mean he or she can't or won't be successful in college," the College Board said in a news release. "It means that students who do not achieve a score of 1550 on the SAT