Most white-black math and reading gaps are up statewide, as well

According to comments in an October 28, 2014 Herald-Leader article, “Fayette school board approves recommendations to eliminate achievement gap,” the Fayette County Public School District’s newest Equity Scorecard showed, “…the achievement gap had widened, with lower numbers of distinguished and proficient students on the state's K-Prep tests for all groups. Most of the gaps were larger than in previous years”.

That is some rather direct candor. Blacks are being left behind in Lexington.

We could use some similar candor from Frankfort. You see, the gap problem is statewide.

I broke out the 2013 and 2014 KPREP math and reading proficiency rates for Kentucky’s white and black students by school level. The following table shows that in most cases, the achievement gaps grew statewide in that period. Specifically, the white minus black achievement gaps grew in elementary schools in both reading and math and in middle school math and high school reading.

There was some slight improvement in the middle school reading and high school math gaps, but those improvements were small. Even after that slight improvement, the table shows that in 2014 in both middle school reading and high school math the black proficiency rates are scarcely more than half the rates for whites.

The Herald-Leader says Fayette County is launching still more attempts to deal with the gaps. However, the unfortunate truth is that we have heard similar promises ever since the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 was passed. It is now nearly a quarter of a century later, and the gaps remain large and mostly are not improving.

In the interests of really improving equity, it clearly is time for Kentucky to engage in some out of the box thinking on gaps, thinking that moves beyond the traditional public school mindsets. One example of that out-of-the-box thinking is to improve school choice in Kentucky with such options as public charter schools. We need those options, and we need them in more places than Louisville. The new Equity Report from Fayette County and the unhappy statewide gap information from KPREP testing prove it.