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.

Fourth grade reading has been the Bluegrass State’s best performance area on the NAEP for years, and that was true in 2015 as this graphic assembled with the NAEP Data Explorer web tool shows.

In 2015 only nine states/jurisdictions had statistically significantly higher fourth grade reading performance for white students than Kentucky, and we can say with good confidence that Kentucky’s white fourth grade students scored statistically significantly higher than counterparts in 10 other states/jurisdictions. The state was statistically tied with the national public school average reading performance, as well.

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

In the new NAEP Grade 4 reading results, Kentucky’s white students were statistically significantly outscored by 17 states/jurisdictions and only statistically significantly outscored whites in just three states/jurisdictions.

Kentucky also scored statistically significantly below the white public school average in 2017.By any measure, this isn’t progress.