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High schools and middle schools begin developing learning strategies within and between depart- ments on how to reinforce the SAT skills across the curriculum. Major concentration in thc following areas~ 1. Higher level thinking and complex analysis. 2. ExtensiVe reading and writing instruction in all content areas. 3. Integrate sl~ilis in Combination with regular course content. 4. Attention given to the four verbal skills tested: recognizing antonyms, completing analogies, choosing best word for sentence completions, reading comprehension. 5. Early vocabulary emphasis on prefix, suffix, root word in helping with definition. (EtymOlogy incorporated throughout vocabulary studies) 6. Evaluate the possibility of adding Latin to the curriculum. Develop a budget that supports curriculum plans. Such considerations would include: 1. Additional positions in secondary schools to allow department chairs additional planning time (a small component of the lead teacher concept). 2. An additional central office stMf position designed to develop, implement, and supervise curricu- lum revision. 3. The addition of one counselor at each high school. 4. Additional staff development money to begin training teachers to move into new frontiers of instructional presentation. 5. Additional enrichment resources for the classrooms such as computers, media materials, soft- ware, texts,journals, cultural programs, etc. 6. Money for teachers' stipends for extended employment as they become involved in the revi- sion of local school curriculum plans. 7. Money and space for a centralized/school site professional library. 8. Class size reduction, especially in upper level English classes to prevent teacher-grading over load where courses require extensive ~tudent writing. EVALUATIVE CRITERIA In order to evaluate the progress of students as the SAT/PSAT curriculum strategies are implemented, it is necessary to determine the expected increase in scores for each school and for the system. In comparing mean scores~ for the last three years at the school level, considering the standard error2(plus or minus 30 points) and extrapolating that statistic into 1989-90, we conservatively expect an incm~tse of 10 points for both the Verbal and Mathemattcs at the school level. As thc number of students increase, it becomes more difficult to raise a mean score. For the system then, we are expecting at least a 5 point increase on the mcan score. This represents one-fourth of a standard deviation. One may look at the actual points and question the modest proportional increase; however, we must caution ourselves that we are dealing with aggregate statistical data with a mean score. It will take many individtlal students scoring better than ten points on each section to incre:~se the average mean 10 points. I Mcs~l score or avcragc score is the statistic that best dcscribes thc performance of thc g~oup. 2 3