Plano ISD students scored well above the national average on the PSAT they took last fall, according to the school district.
District results were announced at the April 4 Plano ISD board meeting.
The PSAT is a practice SAT exam administered by the College Board to students in grades 9-11, according to the College Board website. Those who score high enough on the PSAT in their junior year can qualify for a National Merit Scholarship.
With a maximum score of 1,520, the score reflects how prepared students are to take the SAT, which consists of math, reading, and writing components.
The average score of the 3,557 freshmen students at Plano ISD who took the exam was 933, 100 points above the Texas state average. They also outscored the national average score of 850, per Community Impact.
Tenth graders scored even higher on average, achieving an average score of 975, over 100 points higher than the Texas average and more than the national average of 909 for that grade level.
Eleventh graders scored an average of 1139, over 200 points above the state average and well above the national average of 989.
While the averages are high, Plano ISD still has work to do with some students. For example, 29% of freshmen scored below the state and national averages.
Still, as far as student outcomes go, the district is doing far better than nearby Dallas ISD, which suffers from dismal performance issues, despite the hard work of its dedicated educators.
Only 41% of students scored at grade level at Dallas ISD last school year. Dallas ISD also only managed to graduate 81.1% of its class of 2022 on time.
For its part, Plano ISD saw 62% of its students score at grade level and 95.1% of its seniors graduate on time that same year.
Dallas ISD’s PSAT scores were not immediately accessible in time for publication.
PSAT scores are used by teachers to help plan their lessons for the coming year, as the demographic data is used to determine which students are falling behind.
This is not a new trend for Plano ISD when it comes to standardized testing. The average ACT scores for the district in the 2019-2020 school year were 26.3, as reported by the Texas Tribune, while the national average for the same school year was 20.7, according to Prep Scholar.