There always seems to be “The rest of the story” with Kentucky education

Regarding claims about Kentucky’s NAEP Reading progress

The Late Paul Harvey was a master at giving us “The rest of the story,” and we at BIPPS find ourselves continuing the tradition of filling in important, missing information in comments from others.

Our newest case in point just chirped up in Twitter, where the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) claims the state was one of only 10 to post an increase in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Grade 4 reading scores (between 2013 and 2015).

KDE Tweet About NAEP G4 Reading

The KDE made that claim based on another Tweet from the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which says that 10 states saw score increases on the Grade 4 NAEP Reading Assessment.

NAGB Claim Only 10 States Had Stat. Sig. Increase in Reading 2013 to 2015

Problem #1

According to both the NAEP Data Explorer web tool and to the 2015 NAEP Excel report for the reading assessments (Available from the “Data, Quick View” pull down menus at the bottom of this web page), there actually were 12 states that showed a statistically significant increase in their NAEP Grade 4 Reading Scale Scores between 2013 and 2015.So, NAGB’s claim is not supported by multiple NAEP reports. Go figure.

But, flip to Page 2, because there is still more!

Problem #2

While it is indeed true that Kentucky’s 2015 NAEP Grade 4 Reading Scale Score is statistically significantly higher than its 2013 score, it turns out that Kentucky’s scores for 2009 and 2011 ARE NOT statistically significantly different from the 2015 score. In other words, progress since 2009 has been essentially flat.

Check these results from the statistical significance test feature of the NAEP Data Explorer in this next graphic. In this graphic, 2015 is the comparison year, so no scores are shown.

G4 Reading Significance Tests for KY Scores From 2009 to 2015

By the way, the same lack of significant differences for Kentucky’s 2009 and 2013 Grade 4 scale scores is shown in the previously mentioned Excel spreadsheet for 2015 NAEP reading results, as well.

So, over the term from 2009 to 2015, multiple resources show Kentucky has not made any real progress on NAEP Grade 4 reading once you allow for the statistical sampling errors present in all NAEP results.

And, while you can see in the first Tweet that the Prichard Committee liked the KDE post, the real “Rest of the story” is nothing to crow about.