Bad News, Kids: SAT Scores Lowest In 40 Years

Kids today, right? They’re apparently having a bit of trouble reading these days, as scores in that area are the lowest they’ve been in 40 years.

Graduating seniors of 2012 have clocked in with an average SAT reading score of 496, making them the worst students in reading since 1972, according to a number study from the College Board, the organization that administers the test. Additionally troubling, seniors’ scores in “writing” have also dropped to to 488, a decrease of nine points since 2006. So, should we be worried about the class of 2012 as they leave high school and make moves to become responsible, productive members of society?

The Daily Beast‘s Po Bronson in 2009:

“It’s commonly said that the SAT, taken in a senior year of high school, has only about a 40% correlation with a student’s freshman year college GPA.” But there’s an assumption there, pointed out by Alexander Abad-Santos of The Atlantic Wire. “The line of thinking implied by that statement is that numbers are just numbers, to some extent, and not predictors of future successes, necessarily. They are general predictors of who will get into which colleges,” he writes. Back to Bronson, “I’ve always had a skeptical feeling about the 40% correlation statistic, and so I’ve never relied on it or used it in print.”

So, in short: Yeah, we should be worried.

There are a few factors to be taken into consideration. MSN notes that an unprecedented number of students took the test this year. Almost half were minorities and roughly a quarter are not native English speakers.

Though I don’t know if that’s the good news part. You decide! Sound off, readers!