SAT scores on reading and writing are down nationwide this year, with reading scores at a 40-year low. The numbers were dismal enough that the College Board, which administers the SAT, interpreted this year’s results this way in a Tuesday press release: “[O]nly 43 percent of SAT takers in the class of 2012 graduated from high school with the level of academic preparedness associated with a high likelihood of college success.”

Some have chalked up this year’s poor SAT performance to the fact that more students are taking the test now than before, but this argument misses the real point. Despite years of significant and increasing investment, American secondary education is not improving sufficiently — not pushing an ever-greater number of students to meet college standards.