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, though problems have been more severe in higher grades.

Still, 2017 was not a good year for Kentucky’s fourth grade white math performance on the NAEP.

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

In 2015, 25 states/jurisdictions had statistically significantly higher math performance for white students than Kentucky and we can only say with good confidence that Kentucky’s white fourth grade students scored statistically significantly higher than counterparts in three other states/jurisdictions.

Without question, Kentucky’s 2015 NAEP Grade 4 math performance for white students notably decayed in 2017, as the next graphic shows.

In the new NAEP Grade 4 math results, Kentucky’s white students were statistically significantly outscored by 30 other states/jurisdictions and only statistically significantly outscored whites in just two states. So, 5 more states outscored us and one fewer state did worse.

By any measure, this isn’t progress.