Greenville, SC -- Seven Greenville County high schools were recognized by the SC Department of Education for their improvement efforts on either the ACT or SAT college entrance exams.

In their first year, the ACT/SAT Performance Improvement Awards (ASPI) were created to showcase schools that showed high performance on the ACT or SAT and those that have had rapid or continuous improvement in their scores.  The recipients will receive banners and certificates of achievement for their efforts.

According to Valerie Harrison, Deputy Superintendent of the Division of Standards and Learning at the SDE, the ASPI program has three types of awards for high performance and three types of awards for high improvement.

The award banners for the schools indicate Summa Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude and Cum Laude for the level of award given.  Awards for high performance go to schools whose average composite score exceeds the national average, whose improvement in composite score exceeds the state average, or whose score is in the top tenth percentile in the state. 

Improvement awards go to schools whose score exceeds the state average and level of significant improvement, and who show improvement over a three-year period.

ACT Performance Improvement Award Winners

SAT Performance Improvement Award Winners

Definitions

• ACT composite score – Calculated based on the scores for English, math, reading and science.
• ACT composite improvement score – Defined by subtracting the previous year’s composite from the current year’s composite score.
• ACT participation rate – Calculated by dividing number of test-takers with total number of seniors in the school and expressed as a percent.
• SAT composite score – The sum of critical reading, math and writing scores.
• SAT composite improvement score – Defined by subtracting the previous year’s composite score from the current year’s composite score.
• SAT participation rate – Calculated using number of seniors in the school as denominator and the number of students taking the SAT as numerator expressed as a percent.

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