Students in Butler County beat state averages on SAT scores, despite much of the local and national education environment caring less about the test.

Pennsylvania's Department of Education recently released 2018's average scores for every public school district in the state. The districts in Butler fell within about a 100-point range spanning from about 1060 to 1160.

If you take an average of all the different public school district averages listed, the average is a 1047 score. The state average score including private schools is 1086, according to the standardized testing group CollegeBoard. Its national figure is 1068.

In recent years, a student aiming for admission to Slippery Rock University, for instance, generally needed no worse than a 1080, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. A perfect score is a 1600.

Alfonso Angelucci, superintendent for the Slippery Rock School District, said that all of its students take pre-SAT tests, but that standardized testing doesn't dictate its teaching strategies.

“Our emphasis is on student learning,” Angelucci said. “If test scores rise as a result to that, that's just a bonus.”

In 2018, his district's scores dropped slightly to roughly match Moniteau's as the county's lowest. Still, they're above state averages.

Angelucci said he hasn't heard anything about parents using SAT scores to decide where they're going to raise their families. He has, however, heard that colleges are using them less in decision-making.

That's the rallying cry a nonprofit known as FairTest preaches as it aims to reduce standardized testing throughout the country. Bob Schaeffer, the group's public education director, said Pennsylvania is a good example of a state where universities are placing less importance on test scores. Outside of public universities, “the majority of colleges in Pennsylvania are test score optional,” he said.

SAT scores are a poor measure of educational quality, Schaeffer said. Good scores correlate more closely to income levels than they do to college success.

“It tells you nothing about the quality of education, it's merely a measure of the level of wealth,” Schaeffer said. “They shouldn't put much stock into the SAT.”

The high-score earners in Butler County appear to reflect that notion. The Mars and Seneca Valley School Districts have the highest average SAT scores in the county, and both districts cover areas with higher median incomes than the northern parts of the county, according to U.S. Census data.

In the Butler School District, the school board is about to begin an informal, ongoing discussion of standardized testing. It is holding regular discussions of a book titled “Beyond Test Scores” by Jack Schneider during upcoming board meetings. Schneider writes that “ample research indicates that standardized tests are a poor way to measure a school's performance.”

SAT scoring has changed in recent years. Starting in 2017, the test switched from a 600 to 2400 score range to a 400 to 1600 range. The new test combines the reading and writing sections and separates the essay into its own, optional test portion. Both versions have a math section.

Mike Wick, a father of three students at Center Township Elementary, said he doesn't see the test he took when he was young going away by the time his children have to take it. Still, he doesn't like the tests.

“I feel they're not for every kid,” Wick said. “Some kids just don't test well.”

That opinion aside, he said he hopes that schools in Butler County give options for SAT preparedness when it's their time.

“It can be a lot of pressure on a kid,” Wick said.