Kentucky’s 2022 NAEP Rankings for Whites in Math — The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

Continuing my updates for some of the comparisons in my Bluegrass Institute report about While Kentucky’s education system was sleeping …, here are the results for white students in math.

Figure 1 shows how all the states ranked in 2019 and in 2022 for NAEP Grade 4 Math Scale Scores for white students.

Figure 1

As you can see, while Kentucky’s white NAEP Grade 4 Math Scale Score actually dropped by 5 points between 2019 and 2022, it didn’t make much difference in the results. In 2019, 33 states statistically significantly outscored Kentucky for white students’ results and in 2022 a total of 32 states still statistically outscored Kentucky. Only one state, West Virginia, scored statistically significantly lower than Kentucky in both years.

So, as of 2022, Kentucky’s white fourth graders still rank really low for math compared to their peers elsewhere.

By the way, the NAEP Data Explorer web tool (which is the source of all the data in this blog) shows that in 2022, 74% of all Kentucky fourth grade students tested for NAEP Math were whites. Nationwide, only 45% of all public school students were white. In a total of 22 states, fewer than 50% of the students tested for Grade 4 NAEP Math were white, as well.

Clearly, Figure 1 shows that for Kentucky’s dominant racial group, Grade 4 math performance compared to other states declined even after the impact of the increased sampling errors is considered.

Now, let’s see how Kentucky’s white eighth graders performed in math compared to their racial peers elsewhere. Figure 2 shows the story.

Figure 2

In 2019, white students in 41 states scored statistically significantly higher than Kentucky’s whites and whites in just one state scored statistically significantly lower.

Flash forward to 2022, and the picture hardly has changed. Now, whites in 39 states still score statistically significantly higher and West Virginia remains the only state to score statistically significantly lower.

The information in Figures 1 and 2 shows Kentucky’s white students continue to score well below the middle of the pack in both grades for math. To say the least, this is disappointing performance after 32 years of KERA education reform efforts. It’s no surprise that parents looking at these types of data want to have more options for where they can send their child to school.