Davidson Magnet, No. 1

John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School students put on many fine performances each year, but none will be as fine as their performance on this year's SAT scores - at 1,184, it was the highest average score among non-charter schools in Georgia.

That is one more remarkable achievement for the Richmond County middle and high school, which has collected a host of prestigious honors since it debuted in 1981. The latest SAT scores indicate Davidson is living up to its designation by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation as the state's best school.

A tip of the hat also goes to Richmond County's Westside High School, which, with an average SAT score of 1,138, was the state's fifth-highest. The two schools, Davidson and Westside, apparently played a key role in pulling up Richmond County's SAT average to 1,020 - an improvement of 20 points over last year, and just shy of the national average of 1,028.

However, Richmond County is catching up to Columbia County, which averaged 1,032; none of the latter's high schools finished in the top five. The news from Aiken County, S.C., wasn't encouraging - its average SAT was 1,013, down from last year's 1,017.

And despite improvement of a few points over last year in South Carolina and Georgia, both states are still at the bottom of the heap in the nation's overall SAT scores - tied for last place with an average 993 score.

Yet the question persists: How important are SAT scores in the great educational scheme of things? The College Board, which administers the SAT tests, says individual scores can predict how well a high school graduate will do in college, but that using collective average scores to make comparisons between states and school districts is a meaningless exercise.

Many experts agree, including the Georgia School Superintendents Association, because each state - and often each school district - makes its own policy on how to interpret SAT test results. There's also a lack of uniformity in determining which students take the test. Should it be all of a school's students or just the smart, college-prep kids?

And how should students be prepared for the tests? Should scoring high on SATs be central to the curricula or peripheral? These are issues still being thrashed out around the state, including Richmond and Columbia counties.

Despite all the reservations about using SATs for comparisons, it still goes on unabated. Business, civic and economic development groups are always interested in how schools do on SATs, and both state School Superintendent Kathy Cox and Gov. Sonny Perdue are banking on improved SATs to be major pluses in their expected re-election campaigns.

They might want to be careful what they wish for, but none of the doubts and politicking about the use of SATs lessens Davidson's and Westside's remarkable scores. They achieved all that was asked of them, and then some. No one should expect more than that.