Kentucky’s true achievement gap problem: Part 1, NAEP nastiness

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Kentucky’s public education system continues to face a number of problems, but one of the most serious issues involves its chronic white-minus-black achievement gaps.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

In the early days following the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA), Kentuckians were told: “All children can learn at high levels.” There were to be no exceptions -- not for race, not for poverty, not even for students with learning disabilities.

The idea that students with acknowledged learning disabilities could achieve at high levels expected for other students quickly lost credibility; the saying got changed to: “All children can learn, and most at high levels.” That provided an escape clause for the system to escape accountability for learning-disabled students. Still, our political and education leaders said that other kids -- especially racial minorities -- would perform a lot better.

That was the promise in 1990. It was never kept.

Click the "Read more" link to find out what really happened.

The longest trend lines available for Kentucky’s racial achievement gaps come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress's math and reading assessments.

Eighth-grade NAEP math testing got underway during the same year KERA was enacted. Fourth-grade math and reading assessments started just two years later in 1992 -- the same year that the KIRIS assessments -- the commonwealth's first reform tests -- were launched. Eighth-grade reading was delayed a bit until 1998, but as of the latest NAEP test results for 2013, there are now rich trend lines for both grades in both subjects.

The white-minus-black trends in NAEP fourth-grade math offer no success story for Kentucky’s traditional public education system.

G4 NAEP Math P Rates for KY Whites and Blacks by Year

Notice that while both Kentucky's whites and blacks performed dismally in the NAEP's first year, the proficiency rate gap was only 10 percentage points. Whites over time moved their scores up, although fewer than one in two Kentucky whites scored proficient or more even as of the latest testing in 2013.

The black performance is another, much sadder story.

Blacks as of the latest testing now lag whites in Kentucky by a truly depressing 26 percentage points. Progress among black students has been paltry with fewer than one in five black fourth-graders proficient in math in 2013. The other 80-plus percent of Kentucky’s blacks face a grim future with math skills that are probably too low to compete in the increasingly complex work world they will face.

The situation is nearly as grim -- and in some ways even more depressing -- for fourth-grade NAEP reading.

G4 NAEP Reading P Rates for KY Whites and Blacks by Year

Despite the hype about Common Core state standards, between 2011 -- the year before Common Core testing started in Kentucky -- and the second year of Common Core in 2013, the white-minus-black reading proficiency rate gap actually grew.

Even after allowing for statistical sampling errors in NAEP scores, Kentucky’s black fourth-grade reading proficiency was NO BETTER in 2013 than it was in 2003 and 2005! Black reading proficiency in Kentucky’s traditional school system essentially has made NO IMPROVEMENT during the past entire decade.

Shifting our focus to eighth-grade NAEP reading shows that reading proficiency among blacks scarcely budged between 1998 -- the first year this assessment series was given -- and 2013. In fact, when allowing for the NAEP score sampling errors, Kentucky’s black proficiency didn’t budge for more than a decade between 2002 and 2013.Whites did improve a bit, although well under half of the Bluegrass State's white eighth-grade students posted adequate reading skills even as KERA closed out its 23rd year in 2013.

However, the white-minus-black proficiency gap for eighth-grade NAEP reading has grown and it's never been worse than in 2013.

G8 NAEP Reading P Rates for KY Whites and Blacks by Year

That brings us to the disappointing NAEP eighth-grade math results.

Once again, Kentucky’s white-minus-black 2013 math gap is the worst in NAEP history. The proficiency rate gap in 2013 is far more than twice as large as it was back in 1990. Also, the promise of Common Core has yet to show itself in NAEP results as the gap remained the same between 2011 and 2013.

G8 NAEP Math P Rates for KY Whites and Blacks by Year

By the way, it would be interesting to look at the Hispanic gaps, but we can’t do that. There were so few Hispanics in Kentucky until only a few years ago that NAEP simply didn’t report their scores.

So, the NAEP paints a really gruesome tale for Kentucky’s predominant racial minority.

While alternative education approaches such as charter schools are increasingly showing they can help with minority student performance gaps, selfish adult interests in this state continue to fiercely fight the introduction of such programs.

We think it’s time for Kentucky to face reality. After a quarter-century of dismally failed promises, the state’s racial achievement gaps are simply a disaster that can no longer be excused.

We provided you with solid evidence about those gaps in the NAEP, and we're going to pound this story home with more data from ACT tests and Kentucky’s own assessments in future posts.

Then, we will start shooting holes in some of the out-of-date and misleading claims certain groups are making about the effectiveness of school-choice options like charter schools, especially for minority students.

Failure to take action on charter schools in the upcoming legislative session isn't going to go down well. We’ve had 25 years of failure for Kentucky’s students and it’s time for some people to look at themselves in the mirror and decide they can no longer defend the status quo.

Data Source Technical Note: All NAEP scores were obtained from the NAEP Data Explorer.