Sat Stats

                      Sat Stats

More recent NAEP test results show that average reading scores for students in grade 12 declined from 292 in 1992 to 285 in 2019, the lowest average score during the 1992-2019 period. Average math scores for 12th graders have been flat since 2005.

Despite the significant increase between 1970 and 2018 in the number of public school teachers (57%) and non-teaching staff (152%) relative to the 11.3% increase in students and the significant 30% decrease in the pupil-to-teacher ratio in public schools and the significant 156% increase in inflation-adjusted spending per pupil attending public schools over that period, there was basically no change in academic achievement.

 The nature of Man, Nature versus Nurture, has been the topic of philosophers and thinking people and politicians forever. The world of statistics has muddied these currents of thought as people generalize from larger and larger samples. These collections demand some reaction, as do the numbers above, but the basic reaction must contain the understanding that we, and our worlds, are the products of complex, interacting systems.