Last week, the Georgia Department of Education released district-level and school-level SAT scores for 2014.
According to the report, the state average SAT score for critical reading, math, and writing was 488, 485, and 472 respectively.
Fulton County exceeded the state average with critical reading, math, and writing scores of 520, 530, and 517. 4,829 Fulton County high school students took the SAT in 2014, with highest number of test takers coming from Milton and Roswell high schools. Banneker High School, in College Park, produced the fewest SAT test takers in the county with 83.
Banneker also had the lowest average SAT score in Fulton County. Banneker students scored 398 on critical reading, 396 on math, and 384 on writing. That is over 100 points below the Fulton County average.
Fulton County Schools Superintendent Robert Avossa lauded his county's SAT scores, saying, "Our district's overall score stayed constant this year, but most of our high schools saw increases.
"Only two other districts have higher SAT scores than Fulton and both have almost 3,000 to 4,800 fewer students taking the test," Avossa said. "For a district of our diversity and size, our scores are consistently high which shows how hard our schools are working to prepare students."
The achievement gap between north Fulton County and south Fulton County high schools remains, however.
As the table below shows, fewer students are taking the SAT in the five high schools located in predominately black south Fulton County (Banneker, Creekside, Langston Hughes, Tri-Cities, and Westlake) than in north Fulton. And the SAT scores in south Fulton are lower than the north Fulton average.
Another way to look at it is this:
The best school in south Fulton County, Westlake High School, is still about fifty points below the average of the worst school in north Fulton County -- North Springs High School.
School | of Test Takers | Critical Reading Score | Math Score | Writing Score |
Alpharetta | 447 | 562 | 580 | 562 |
Banneker | 83 | 398 | 396 | 384 |
Cambridge | 197 | 530 | 539 | 518 |
Centennial | 328 | 527 | 529 | 521 |
Chattahoochee | 423 | 550 | 578 | 552 |
Creekside | 170 | 429 | 416 | 420 |
Johns Creek | 418 | 553 | 580 | 558 |
Langston Hughes | 270 | 414 | 407 | 404 |
Milton | 505 | 552 | 562 | 540 |
North Springs | 271 | 517 | 499 | 503 |
Northview | 468 | 575 | 622 | 582 |
Riverwood | 335 | 518 | 512 | 510 |
Roswell | 505 | 546 | 556 | 551 |
Tri-Cities | 94 | 438 | 427 | 432 |
Westlake | 315 | 437 | 431 | 427 |
[SOURCE: Georgia Department of Education]