Kentucky’s white students almost stagnant in 2017 NAEP – Grade 8 Math — The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

Without question, one of the more unpleasant surprises for me as I uncase the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results is the disturbing picture for the state’s largest racial group, its white students.

Math has been the Bluegrass State’s most challenging performance area on the NAEP for years, and Grade 8 math has been the worst of all.

This first graph, assembled using the NAEP Data Explorer, shows how the state’s white students stacked up in 2015.

In 2015, 44 states/jurisdictions had statistically significantly higher math performance for eighth grade white students than Kentucky and we can only say with good confidence that Kentucky’s white eighth grade students scored statistically significantly higher than counterparts in two other states/jurisdictions.

The state scored below the national public school average math performance, as well.

Things didn’t change much in 2017, as the next graphic shows.

In the new NAEP Grade 8 reading results, Kentucky’s white students were statistically significantly outscored by 43 other states/jurisdictions and again as in 2015 only statistically significantly outscored whites in just two states.

Kentucky continued to score statistically significantly below the white public school average for Grade 8 math in 2017, as well.

So, we tied one more state and there still were only two states/jurisdictions in the whole country that did worse.

This is scant progress after more than a quarter of a century of KERA and the Bluegrass State remains far behind in math performance.