Coweta County Schools SAT Scores top State, National Averages in 2019

From Coweta County Schools Press Release

The Coweta County School System’s average score on the SAT was 1,081 among its 2019 graduates, placing Coweta Schools 42 points above the national average and 33 points above the state average on the college entrance exam.

The reporting released by the College Board and the Georgia Department of Education shows test results for 2019 graduates on the SAT’s Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and Math sections of the test, which is scaled between 400 and 1600 points.

Coweta County’s overall performance on the SAT placed the school system 21st out of 179 Georgia school districts reporting on the SAT, or in the top 12 percent of the state.

It was the fifth year in a row that the Coweta County School System scored higher than both the state and nation.  All three Coweta high schools’ average score was also above state and national averages in 2019.

This was the second year that the state of Georgia’s average SAT score was above the national average. Coweta’s average SAT score of 1,081 decreased by 1 point in 2019; Georgia public school students’ average score dropped 6 points in 2019, to an average score of 1,048, and national SAT averages dropped 10 points in 2019, to an average score of 1,039.  That widened Georgia students’ outperformance on the SAT to 9 points above the national average SAT score.

Those results make the Coweta County School System one of the higher-ranked school systems in a state with a SAT mean score well above the national average.

“I’m proud of our students and teachers,” said Coweta School System Superintendent Steve Barker.  “SAT performance, along with other measures, reflects a school system’s emphasis and reflects the rigor of its K through 12 curriculum.”

“Our community should be proud of our students and staff for these outcomes, too,” said Barker.  “I believe these results, along with other performance measures, reflect the solid work by our whole school system to make Coweta County and great place to live and raise a family.”

The mean scores above present data for students in the graduating class of 2019 who took the new SAT during high school. Within each assessment, test-takers are counted only once and only their latest scores are included.

While individual school scores may rise or fall from year to year, because of smaller testing pools, East Coweta, Newnan and Northgate’s consistently high performance on the SAT tends to rank the Coweta County School System high among Georgia school systems.

2019 graduates of East Coweta, Northgate and Newnan and High Schools performed well overall, with all three schools averaging above state and national averages. East Coweta High ranked 101 out of 394 Georgia high schools reported this year (top 26% of Georgia high schools), Northgate High ranked 43 (top 11%), and Newnan High ranked 119 (top 30%).

Northgate High School’s average SAT score increased by 14 points from 2018 to 2019. Newnan High School’s average increased by 13 points. Newnan High School Principal Chase Puckett noted that his school’s SAT test participation and overall scores increased among 2019 graduates.

“We went from 201 test-takers in 2018 to 253,” said Puckett. “At the same time, our average on Evidence-Based Reading and Writing increased from 537 to 544 and from 507 to 513 in Math. We had 42 students (17 percent) scoring 1200 or above and 7 students (3 percent) scoring 1400 or above.”

Puckett said the school has increased opportunities for students to be able to take the SAT, and that more students are prepared to take the test because of increased academic opportunities during their high school career.  “The addition of more Advanced Placement and Dual-Enrollment course options for all students has led to an increase across the board in SAT and ACT scores.  We are seeing increasing numbers of students getting into division one and Ivy League schools as a direct result of the improvements in SAT scores.”

The Georgia Department of Education pointed out that Georgia students’ improvement on this year’s SAT took place even as more students took the test. 67 percent of Georgia public-school graduates in the class of 2019 took the SAT, up from 66 percent in 2018 and 59 percent in 2017. 762 students in Coweta County’s 2019 graduating class took the SAT, or about 46 percent of the student body.