More students from diverse backgrounds are taking the SAT, a College Board report released Monday shows, but critics warn that their performance on the college entrance exam raises concerns about the current national policy and quality of K-12 education.

Among SAT takers in the high school class of 2010, the report states, 41.5 percent were minority students, a 3.75 percent jump over the 40 percent who took the test the previous year and a dramatic rise over the 28.6 percent who took the college entrance exam in 2000. The College Board reported  that more college-bound students in the class of 2010, nearly 1.6 million students, took the SAT than in any other high school graduating class in history.

However, mean scores generally held steady but also approached historic lows in some measures.

“That’s a good thing that more kids, particularly those from historically disenfranchised groups, are thinking about going to college,” said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, an organization that advocates for fairness in standardized assessments.

“But it doesn’t help if they’re less well prepared,” Schaeffer said of the fact that the SAT scores of low-income and minority students generally lagged behind those of Whites.

Schaeffer blames the lagging scores among minority groups on an inferior K-12 education they receive under No Child Left Behind.

Asked whether he blamed the law itself or other factors, Schaeffer said: “We’re saying that No Child Left Behind promised to narrow the racial test score gap and improve overall achievement. That’s not what happened by any measure.”

According to the newly released College Board report—titled 2010 College-Bound Seniors: Total Group Profile Report—SAT scores pretty much held steady from the previous year. However, on a more detailed level, reading scores are near an all-time low at 501, and math scores are near an all-time high at 516, while writing scores are at an all-time low at 492 for the five years since the writing component was added to the SAT. SAT takers in the high school class of 2009 had mean scores of 501 in reading, 515 in math, and 493 in writing.