"On SAT College-Entrance Exam, Class of 2010 Posts Few Changes"

This article highlights the fact that while more students of diverse ethnic backgrounds (up to 42% this year, from 29% in 2000) are taking the SATs, the achievement gap continues to persist.  Some of the statistics mentioned: reading scores for whites averaged 528, Asians 519, Latinos 454 and African-Americans 429.  A testing group in Massachusetts that criticise standardized testing deemed these scores prove No Child Left Behind has failed.  However, I found the small paragraph in the middle of the article most interesting - it mentions that while scores are correlated along ethnic and socio-economic lines, they also appear to be heavily influenced by what classes the students take.  For example, if a student takes all four years of English they score higher (AP and honors even more so).  Now this surprised me - aren't all high school students required to take four years of English?  Obviously they aren't, if the article mentions this trend specifically.  So shouldn't we start worrying more about getting everyone to take math (same correlations) and English all four years rather than allowing seniors to attend with a partial credit load?  Of course, this is if our end-all and be-all is to increase SAT scores.  Just the fact that there is a disparity at all would have our ethics Professor on her soap box, but maybe we need to look a little deeper into what is creating these gaps.  I want some additional statistics, personally - like high-income African-American and Latino scores, or the average income level of Asians, who consistently fare almost as well or better than whites in test scores, to see if it is more income-based, or a resources gap.