Minority SAT scores surge as participation drops in Montgomery

Montgomery County school officials are trumpeting an impressive jump in their students’ SAT scores, but data shows that the increase was driven by spikes in scores at schools with predominantly minority populations where participation dropped as much as 28 percent.

At Wheaton High School, where 74 percent of last year’s seniors were black or Hispanic, the average score jumped 72 points to 1,395, while participation fell from 70.3 to 50.5 percent. In Kensington, scores at highly Hispanic Albert Einstein High School skyrocketed 114 points, while participation dropped 16.3 percent to 51.4 percent. In Gaithersburg, 23.6 percent fewer students took the SAT at Watkins Mill High School, but scores shot up 95 points.