Achievement gaps generally worse in 2016 KPREP testing — The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

Part of the massive Unbridled Learning data package includes academic test score results across the state for both white and African-American students (hereafter black students for brevity). That allows us to look at the changes in the white minus black achievement gaps since last year, material that didn’t get much coverage elsewhere.

Sadly, that picture does not look very good – and especially so for Kentucky’s black students – as you can see by clicking the “Read more” link.

The Kentucky Department of Education’s Media Release and initial coverage in the media didn’t go into detail about gaps and score changes from Kentucky’s Unbridled Learning in 2016, so I do that for you in Tables 1 to 3 below. Table 1 covers the elementary school results from the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (KPREP) tests. These results have been averaged across all elementary school grades tested (3 to 5).First, here's a bit about how to read the tables.

The first section covers test proficiency rates for whites and blacks and the gaps in those proficiency rates during the 2014-15 school year. For example, Table 1 for elementary schools shows that in 2014-15 white elementary school students were 58.8 percent proficient in Language Mechanics while black students scored only 36.5 percent proficient in that content area. The gap was 22.3 points.

In this school year elementary school students were tested in five content areas. Science was not officially tested due to delayed development of a new science test (test still under development for the 2016-17 school year).

Table 1

The second section of the table shows the test results and gaps for the 2015-16 school year.

The last section of the table shows the changes in scores and the gaps between 2014-15 and 2015-16. For example, whites were 58.8 percent proficient in Language Mechanics in 2014-15 and scored 55.2 percent proficient one year later. Thus, there was a decline in white scores of 3.6 points between those years.

We don’t want scores to decline, so the “-3.6” number for the white’s Language Mechanics score change is shown in bold red type against a yellow background to make it clear this is an undesirable change.

When we talk about the achievement gaps, we want to reduce these figures. So, in the table’s changes for achievement gaps are shown in red bold type on a yellow background when the numbers have increased.

Very simply, when you see data in red type on a yellow background in the changes part of the table, this change went in the wrong direction.

For elementary schools, the change in the gaps in every area except Social Studies went in the wrong direction.

When we look at test score changes, both white and black scores trended in the wrong direction between the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years in three of five tested subjects.

Simply put, there is far too much red in the change area of Table 1.

Table 2 uses the same format to show what happened with the middle school results (Grades 6 to 8).

Table 2

The picture here is a bit different from the elementary school situation. Most of the scores increased for both whites and blacks, with only Language Mechanics declining (by a rather notable amount) for both races and with Social Studies sinking slightly for blacks.

However, whites made more progress than blacks in every subject, so the change in the gaps shown in the bottom section of Table 2 is a terrible story. Blacks lost ground across the board in every content area tested even though they made score improvements in three areas.

Finally, Table 3 shows the high school results from our analysis.

Table 3

First, note that science was tested in the high schools. That is because the high schools use a different source for most of the academic testing, the ACT’s Quality Core tests.

As a sad note, that is about to change because ACT is shutting down the Quality Core tests after 2016-17, so Kentucky will be hunting for new tests to cover Mathematics, Reading, Science and Social Studies after this year.

Getting back to Table 3, we see a bit worse story in the changes in scores for both whites and blacks in our high schools between 2014-15 and 2015-16. Whites lost ground in Science and Writing and blacks lost ground in those two subjects and Reading, too.

The gaps picture looks a bit better, with only two of six areas showing gaps increasing. However, the gap reduction in writing doesn’t look like any sort of success story. The gap was reduced only because white scores dropped even more than black scores did for this content area. This is not the way we want gaps to be reduced.

Overall, Tables 1 to 3 show 16 different score sets. There are five each for the elementary and middle schools covering Language Mechanics, Mathematics, Reading, Social Studies and Writing. For high schools, we also have those five subjects plus science to consider.

When we look at the 16 subject scores for whites, we find declines occurred in 37.5 percent of the cases. For blacks, there were declines in subject scores in 50 percent of the 16 scores set.

When we look at gaps, the situation deteriorated in 68.8 percent of the 16 separate examples shown in Tables 1 to 3.Overall, when we talk about the test changes between 2014-15 and 2015-16, the picture shown by Tables 1 to 3 isn’t good news. I see far too much red type, especially in the gap changes part of the tables, but also in the score changes by race, as well. And, the situation is clearly worse for black students.

What makes this situation far sadder is that it has been going on for years. Still, certain adult interests in Kentucky continue to battle education programs like school choice that are showing promise and progress in dealing with minority student under-performance. One has to wonder how much longer adult interests are going to continue to trump the needs of our minority kids in Kentucky.

Tech Note: The source of the scores used to assemble Tables 1 to 3 is the Kentucky School Report Cards “Data Sets” section where Excel spreadsheets for 2014-15 and 2015-16 for ASSESSMENT_KPREP_EOC and ASSESSMENT_KPREP_LEVEL can be accessed.