If the Richmond SOL and Stanford 9 scores are bad news, the Richmond SAT scores are a disaster.
First the data sources: Richmond published on its Web site the individual school scores for 1997-2001 and, inexplicably, for math score for Community High for 2002. Thereafter they published "average" scores (the gold squares on the graphs); the data for 2001-05 are here. The Standard & Poors database at SchoolMatters.com had the 2004 data for the division (the black square with the red + in the middle) and the state; that web site now has restricted itself to a sample of individual school data while the full data have moved to the SchoolDataDirect site, which has the 2005 Richmond and State average data, as well as the 2005 data for the high schools. The other State Average scores here are from press releases (one here and one here and one here) on the Dept. of Education web site.
Here are the big pictures:
Note the miraculous improvement in the scores once Richmond started reporting the "average" scores. Do you want to believe Richmond's obviously inflated numbers in the gold squares or the SchoolMatters data in the black squares?
Notice also that Armstrong and Kennedy both are missing from the 2005 data; S&P lists Kennedy (at the Armstrong address) but provides no data.
By any measure, the Richmond scores are terrible. In 2005, our highest scoring high school, Community, was 8 points below the state average verbal score and 7 points behind the average math score. The others ranged from worse (Open) to much, much worse (all the rest).
To provide some context, Longwood (as of 2003) required a 950 minimum SAT score for admission of a student with an "A" average; for a "C" student, the minimum score is 1010. The Richmond SAT average for 2004 (the real one from SchoolMatters, not the bogus one from the Richmond Schools' Web site) is 115 points below the Longwood requirement for admitting an "A" student and 175 points below the minimum for a "C" student.
"Disaster" is too kind a word for this situation. "Expensive disaster" comes closer.
The Richmond Schools' web page says at the top:
"Capital punishment" would be closer to the truth.