July Newsflash
On the ground, ‘word did not get out’ about District’s new SAT push
Nearly 80 percent of colleges and universities use the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) when making admissions decisions, and about half of high school graduates nationally took the test last year.
In the Philadelphia School District, the only SAT participation data available is the total number of students taking the test each year – which has hovered around 25 percent of all juniors and seniors – a number that does not satisfy District officials.
To increase that figure and the total number of college-bound students in Philadelphia, the District kicked off a major initiative during the 2003-04 school year to provide free test registration and free SAT preparation courses for high school students, with a particular focus on students enrolled in neighborhood high schools.
The District picked up the $140,000 test registration bill for 5,500 juniors to take the SAT. In addition, they paid $500,000 to Kaplan Inc. – the national education company that specializes in standardized test preparation – to provide SAT preparation courses for almost 2,000 high school students.
The total number of students who took the SAT this year, according to District estimates, is over 6,000 – up by roughly 500 students over last year – but that still only represents about 27 percent of all juniors and seniors, a Notebook review of School District data found.
The District did, however, show significant improvement in getting students to take the precursor to the SAT, the PSAT, with a 54 percent increase in the number of tenth and eleventh graders taking the test this year than last year. A $100,000 District contract with the College Board enabled 11,800 students to register free of charge for the fall in-school test, which allows students to qualify for national merit scholarships for college.
Frankford High School principal Richard Mantell said he is glad an urban district like Philadelphia is offering students a free Kaplan SAT course.
“Our kids need it. It’s an advantage that many suburban students utilize in their [college] application process,” he said.
Kaplan offers SAT preparation courses in some other urban districts like Dallas and Fulton County, GA, but Kaplan spokeswoman Carina Wong noted, “It is not particularly common.”
More goals to meet
Deputy Chief Academic Officer Creg Williams, who oversees the District’s
SAT initiative, said he is measuring the success of these new initiatives
in light of the School Reform Commission’s recently issued
“Declaration
of Education,” a statement of sweeping educational reform
goals for the District to meet by 2008.
By 2008, according to the SRC’s Declaration, 85 percent of students will graduate and 80 percent of those graduates will go on to postsecondary institutions after high school. Student SAT and ACT scores will meet or exceed the national average by this date as well, the Declaration states.
To meet the SRC’s ambitious goal, Williams said he wants to increase the number of college-bound high school graduates by 5-7 percent every year.
The District reports that its on-time graduation rate was just 52 percent last year. Of these students, 66 percent went on to pursue some form of postsecondary study in that same year, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Low SAT scores and disparities in achievement on the SAT between students at neighborhood high schools and special admissions high schools are the norm in Philadelphia. The median combined SAT score of students at the District’s neighborhood high schools was just 730 points (out of a possible score of 1,600); at 9 special admissions high schools the median score was just under 1,000, according to data from the 2004 Inquirer School Report Card. Last year’s national SAT test-taker average was just over 1,000.
“The object when you take this test is to get a combined score of 800 or more,” Williams said. “As we implement our new curriculum, we feel that those numbers will increase each year.”
The District’s newly appointed Chief Academic Officer, Gregory Thornton, said in his previous post at the Montgomery County, Maryland school district, officials set the SAT target at 1,100 points.
“We wanted to prepare every one of our youngsters to be candidates to go to college,” said Thornton in a June press conference. “Everyone is not going to go to college, but we wanted everyone to be eligible.”
Outreach lacking, observers say
Most applaud the District for stepping up efforts to increase the
number of college-bound students, particularly at neighborhood high
schools. But most of the principals, teachers, students, and advocates
of higher education interviewed by the Notebook said there was insufficient
advance publicity about the opportunities to take the spring SAT
and the Kaplan SAT courses that began last March.
Open to students from any high school, the Kaplan SAT preparation courses were held at 18 high school sites across the city. Students had the option of attending 10 Saturday morning sessions or afterschool sessions twice a week for five weeks.
Student attrition from the courses was high, with just about 2,000 students, mostly juniors, actually completing the courses. There are about 15,000 eleventh graders in the District.
Virginia Dixon, a student at University City High School, said she heard about the Kaplan course offered at West Philadelphia High School through a counselor and said the principal made announcements over the loudspeaker advertising the opportunity.
“It was all over the place,” she said. “More students need to take advantage of it.”
But parent Margaret Levy, former president of Masterman Home and School Association, said while some students may have known, few parents did. She said the District lacked a “uniform” process to inform parents about the SAT offerings.
“They let the kids know about it, but they didn’t send a note home,” she said. “The District could have sent out letters.”
Mantell said the planning for the Kaplan course at Frankford “came about very quickly,” and “was less than optimal.”
“A lot of the students who would normally have participated already had made other commitments,” Mantell said, noting that about 75 students participated in the course at his school.
Williams acknowledged the rushed outreach and said the District will use “multiple ways” to get the word out to students and their families next year.
“The word did not get out the way it should have,” said Williams. “This was a year of growing pains for us.”
The counselors and principals at each high school were responsible for recruiting students to participate in both the Kaplan courses and the free SAT registration. But with the short notice and counselor-to-student ratios nearly 1 to 500 at some schools, the success of these efforts varied greatly.
Thomas Butler, executive director of College Opportunities Resources for Education (CORE) Philly, said there is a need to inform students and their families about the importance of the SAT in the college application process.
“If you don’t understand the value of doing it, you’re not going to take advantage,” said Butler.
Despite the criticism, many said they hope the Kaplan courses will be offered again next year.
In an effort to provide courses at every high school next year, Williams said Kaplan will provide teachers with training on how to deliver SAT preparation courses.
The District is currently in negotiations with Kaplan, and Williams said he expects to bring a proposal for a renewed contract with the education company to the SRC in August.
Why contract out?
Some question the District’s reliance on national for-profit
companies, instead of successful homegrown groups, to provide these
new SAT-related services to high school students.
“Kaplan had never worked with our kids before, so they didn’t really know what our kids needed,” Butler said.
Mary Ellen King, chair of the Mathematics department at Masterman, organized and ran a series of free citywide SAT preparation courses for District students through the Philadelphia Education Fund’s College Access Program, until a lack of funding forced the program’s end after over a decade.
King said she is not an opponent of the Kaplan program but met with District high school officials last year to inform them of her willingness to offer her SAT test preparation services to the District as well.
Ultimately, District officials chose only Kaplan.
“I was saddened by it,” said King, who said many students who participated in her SAT courses – most of whom were from low-income families with little prior exposure to the college application process – saw their scores increase by anywhere from 80 to 150 points.
Mantell praised the Kaplan program’s organization and structure.
“It has a proven track record,” he said.
In the end, said Butler, the District needs to hold Kaplan accountable for improving student success on the SAT by collecting data about student performance.
“There needs to be a lot of following up behind what worked and what didn’t work,” he said.
Kaplan SAT courses were offered at 18 high school sites: Dobbins-Randolph, Edison, Frankford, Furness, Germantown, Girls, Gratz, King, Lincoln, Mastbaum, Masterman, Northeast, Olney, Roxborough, Strawberry Mansion, Washington, William Penn, West Philadelphia.
Contact Notebook staff writer Beandrea Davis at 215-951-0330 x156 or beandrea@thenotebook.org.
Notebook intern Moira Moody provided editorial assistance for this edition of the NEWSFLASH.