South County SAT Scores Outpace State, Nation

For the third straight year, South County Secondary School SAT scores were well above the national average and ahead of statewide marks.

At the county level, scores in math, reading and writing for 2010 were exactly what they were the year before: 552 in Reading, 569 in Math and 543 in writing. A perfect score is 800.

Fairfax County Public Schools spokesperson Paul Regnier said that from a county perspective, "Our scores are very good. We'd always like to see higher scores, but we're still very pleased. I think we're still the highest around."

South County's scores dropped in all three categories, but only by a small margin.  Reading scores fell from 535 to 525. Math dipped from 542 to 532, and writing slid from 521 to 515. The national averages are 501, 516 and 492 respectively. In Virginia, they are 512, 512 and 497.

A full report of the scores is available here. (See the file that accompanies this story for a side-by-side comparison of the 24 public secondary schools in Fairfax County for the last three years.)

Regnier noted that individual school results can be affected by a number of factors. The scores do not necessarily represent the performance of strictly South County students. Students from neighboring schools may take the SAT at South County. By the same token, South County students do not necessarily take their tests at their home school. Data on the amount of times such instances occurred was not available.

Furthermore, the SATs do not measure any endorsed curriculum either on a county, state or national level.

"We are very happy with our scores," Regnier said. "But we know that the scores are only a predictor of what students will do in their freshman year of college. There are plenty of students who don't necessarily do well on the SATs, but get good grades in school and go on to do well in college."