Bluegrass Institute staff education analyst Richard Innes’ analysis in Thursday’s Lexington Herald-Leader of the latest ACT college-entrance test results released this week includes disaggregating the scores, which reconfirms both the seriousness of Kentucky’s white minus black achievement gap and the need for charter schools in the Bluegrass State, one of seven states without a charter school law.

Innes writes:

The institute compared Kentucky’s 2016 ACT performance for all students to those in charter school-rich Louisiana. Findings from these two states match those from previous years of ACT testing.

When ACT Composite scores are disaggregated by race, both whites and blacks in Louisiana outscore Kentucky’s students in those racial groups. Virtually all minority groups in Louisiana outperform their Kentucky counterparts.

Louisiana clearly benefits from something it’s doing that’s not happening in Kentucky. Charter schools – well-known to especially benefit minority students but unavailable in Kentucky – likely contribute to that difference.

  (Revised to add better table)