Kudos to the reading department

http://www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/206201.html

eSchool news interpreted it:

Average SAT scores were stable or rising most years from 1994 to 2004, but they have been trending downward since. That's likely due in part to the widening pool of test-takers. That's a positive sign that more students are aspiring to college, but it also tends to weigh down average scores.

The parents-didn't-attend-college group went up a bit and they said it was important, which is probably is but it was only four percent of test takers. The CB attributed it to multiple changes. But from a state Dept of Ed perspective, the increase in ELL student numbers is way up:

Language diversity is increasing as more 2009 SAT takers report that English is not exclusively their first language compared to previous years — 25.2 percent versus 18.3 percent in 1999.

It amazes me that reading didn't fall more than it did. Kudos to the reading department.