Texas SAT Scores Not Up To Par

There's more bad news regarding the education of students in Texas.   With our state school board (pictured) more interested in teaching religion than anything else and Republican leadership in Austin more interested in cutting taxes than adequately funding our schools, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that Texas students are falling below the national average in knowledge and skills.

On Tuesday, the Texas Education Agency released the numbers on last year's SAT scores by Texas students.   As usual, Texas students, as a whole, were significantly lower than the national average on all three parts of the test.

Even though they gained one point this year on the math portion of the test, Texas students still scored nine points below the national average.   On the critical reading portion there was a two point drop over last year, resulting in Texas students finishing 15 points below the national average.   On the writing portion there was a five point drop from last year, with Texas students finishing 18 points below the national average.   Here are the scores:

TEST SECTION..........TEXAS..........NATION

math.............................506................515

critical reading...........486................501

writing.........................475................493

Like it or not, this means a lot of other states are doing a better job of educating their students than Texas is doing.   That's inexcusable and unacceptable.   There's no way that Texas students are dumber than students in any other state.   So the only conclusion to draw is that Texas state leadership and local school boards (and parents) are not living up to their responsibilities.

All Texans should be ashamed of this, and demand that it be fixed immediately.