Kentucky Commissioner of Education Stephen Pruitt delivered his second annual “The State of P-12 Public Education in the Commonwealth of Kentucky” report today, making extensive and very candid comments about the serious achievement gap situation in the state.

I’ll be spending some time in this report, but I think many at the press conference were particularly struck by results of a new analysis of course grade awards versus performance on Kentucky’s various mathematics assessments. So, I am going to delve into that new research now.

To put it mildly, this new research was a major eye-opener. Aside from showing some very disturbing trends regarding differential course grading by race, the data undermines a long-held notion that course grades are likely to be the best predictor of college performance.

Let’s look at two of the eye-watering graphs in the new report.

Figure 1

The graph in Figure 1 is based on a study of Grade 8 math course letter grades and KPREP math scores from 2012 to 2016, and is found on Page 6 in the report. It shows some pretty disappointing things are happening in Kentucky’s public school system.

Looking vertically up from the “A” grade point on the right side of the horizontal axis, we see an example of why the report says:

“For African American students whose average letter grade in their middle school math courses was an A, the chance of scoring proficient on state math tests was 25 percentage points lower than that of white students who also earned an A average.”

Clearly, less is being demanded of Kentucky’s blacks to earn an “A” grade in math class. Across Kentucky, teachers are setting a lower standard for these children of color to earn an “A.” Examination of the graph for other letter grades shows blacks are held to lower standards for every other grade from “B” even down to a “D” score, though the amount of performance difference for whites versus blacks does decline a bit as we move down the grading scale.

Commissioner Pruitt pointed out that we can learn still more from the graph in Figure 1. If you follow the dotted red lines, you will see there is a consistent pattern for blacks earning any letter grade from “A” down to “D.”As the report explains:

“An African American student’s chance of scoring proficient in math was the same as that of a white student who earned the next grade lower.”

This reinforces the idea that blacks are being held to a notably lower standard.

A similar situation is also found in high school results, as the next graph, found on Page 7 in the report and shown as Figure 2 below, shows. This time, instead of KPREP math scores, Commissioner Pruitt’s research team compared course letter grades in math to the likelihood that the student reached the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education’s (CPE) Benchmark Score of 19 on the ACT college entrance test.

Figure 2

As the report explains:

“African American students had lower chances of meeting the Kentucky math benchmark on the ACT than white students who earned the same average letter grade in high school math courses.”

The graph in Figure 2 also has those horizontal dotted red lines, and they show a very similar situation to what is found in Figure 1. Basically, blacks are about as likely to reach the CPE Benchmark for math as a white student scoring one full letter grade lower in math class.

While the report doesn’t mention it, the obvious differences in grading raise another interesting point. There are a number of reports (such as one discussed here) that claim the best predictor of college performance is high school grading.

Clearly, that finding will have to be revisited, at least for children of color in Kentucky. It appears that for racial minorities in particular, an “A” might not be all it seems. Actual data from Kentucky now shows that.

More importantly, our minority students might be getting misled about how well they are really prepared for college – and life – as well.