What you probably never heard before

A disturbing thing happened over time to Kentucky’s black students in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Grade 8 Math assessments. It’s not a happy story, but it sure is enlightening.

Way back in 1990, the NAEP conducted its first ever state assessment. The lone subject evaluated was Grade 8 Math. And, Kentucky’s blacks ranked at the top. Overall, the NAEP Data Explorer’s statistical significance tools list Kentucky’s blacks in sixth place out of all the states that got black scores reported in 1990. After considering the sampling errors in the NAEP scores, it turns out no state scored statistically significantly higher than Kentucky.

Flash forward to 2017, and my how time have changed. When the NAEP Data Explorer rank orders state scores for 2017, Kentucky now has sunk to 37th place out of the 40 states and the District of Columbia systems that have black scores reported.

This by any measure, is a huge decay. For more details on how this slide looked over time, click the “Read more” link.

Participation in the NAEP was voluntary back in 1990, and some states chose not to take part. Nine other states did participate, but their samples of black students were so small that the NAEP didn’t publish their scores. That left 30 “jurisdictions” including other states and the District of Columbia schools that did participate and receive scores for their black students. The results for those states are summarized in Figure 1.

Figure 1

After considering the statistical sampling errors in the scores, Kentucky’s black students scored right at the top of the pack. No other jurisdiction had a statistically significantly higher NAEP Grade 8 Math Scale Score in 1990 for its black students. Also, Kentucky’s blacks statistically significantly outscored blacks in a total of 8 jurisdictions, including 7 other states and the District of Columbia.

There also was no statistically significant difference between Kentucky’s black students’ score and the national public school average score for blacks.

Overall, the NAEP Data Explorer’s statistical significance tools list Kentucky’s black students’ score in sixth place out of all the states that got black scores reported in 1990. But, as mentioned earlier, those other five states didn’t have scores that were statistically significantly different from Kentucky’s.

Ten years later, another State NAEP in math was conducted in 2000. Once again, as Figure 2 shows, no jurisdiction had black scores that were statistically significantly higher than Kentucky’s black students achieved. There was a slight decay at the other end of the measurement, however, as this time only six, not eight, jurisdictions scored statistically significantly lower. In other words, Kentucky outscored fewer other states in 2000 compared to 1990.

Figure 2

Once again, Kentucky’s blacks also didn’t score statistically significantly different from the national public school average for blacks, either.

Moving further forward, in 2015 Figure 3 shows Kentucky’s blacks’ very high NAEP ranking was slipping. This happened even though there was a notable increase in number of states that participated and had scores for blacks reported.

Figure 3

In 2015 one other jurisdiction scored statistically significantly higher than Kentucky’s blacks and Kentucky’s blacks only outscored just one jurisdiction by a statistically significant amount.

Again, as late as 2015 Kentucky’s black Grade 8 NAEP Math performance wasn’t notably different from the national average score for blacks.

Finally, we come to the latest, 2017 NAEP results, summarized in Figure 4. The NAEP Grade 8 Math ranking slide for Kentucky’s blacks seriously accelerated.

Figure 4

In 2017 a total of 12 other jurisdictions outscored Kentucky’s blacks, and Kentucky didn’t statistically significantly outscore any other state or the District of Columbia.

Even more disturbing, Kentucky’s blacks in 2017 now scored statistically significantly BELOW the national average score for blacks.

In fact, when the NAEP Data Explorer rank orders the states’ scores for 2017, Kentucky now has sunk to 37th place out of the 40 states and the District of Columbia system that have scores reported. That’s a real tumble from the sixth place listing the Bluegrass State’s blacks recorded back in 1990.Basically, the fall in relative performance for Kentucky’s blacks is not just disturbing, it’s alarming. In 1990, after allowing for the statistical sampling errors in NAEP, no state outscored Kentucky for black student scores on Grade 8 Math. In 2017, no state scored statistically significantly lower. This certainly calls for far more dramatic action regarding the state’s growing white minus black achievement gaps.(Comments added to last paragraph at 7:43 PM on 25 Apr 18)