Regular readers know we have spent a lot of time over the past few years on the massive problem of poor-quality reading instruction in Kentucky’s public schools.

Massive evidence of this problem has been available for many years both in state test results and in results from other tests from the ACT, Inc. such as the ACT College Entrance Test and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

But it doesn’t need to be this way.

Back in 2019, the state of Mississippi shocked the entire nation with its dramatic progress in reading results in that year’s NAEP Grade 4 Reading Assessment. It turns out that the Magnolia State got tired of being dead last in education and enacted laws beginning in 2013 to change that. One focus was on getting all the state’s teachers up to speed on what science shows works best to teach reading. The results are now history.

But Kentucky’s schools languished on with obviously ineffective reading practices that consistently resulted in only around one in three of the state’s white students learning to read proficiently. Meanwhile for the state’s Black students, the entire reading history back to the early days of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 has been one unending story of failed promises.

Still, even in the Bluegrass State, it doesn’t have to be that way.

In January, 2022, the Bluegrass Institute released our report on Reading proficiency rates rising in some Appalachian schools. It highlights some encouraging examples of schools in Clay Count in Eastern Kentucky that were breaking the curve as of pre-COVID 2019 for remarkably high reading proficiency rates despite high levels of poverty. Those Clay County teachers, like the teachers in Mississippi, were reeducated on what the scientific research shows works best to teach reading.

Now, it’s three years later, and new test results from Kentucky’s state tests have been loaded into the Education Consumers Foundation’s really neat third grade reading performance calculator. As things turn out, the Clay County schools suffered under COVID, though they are starting to bounce back.

However, another school system that participated in the same reading improvement program Clay County has been using has now bubbled to the top in the 2022 Kentucky Summative Assessment (KSA) results. It’s the Laurel County Public School District, and its 2022 results are almost as impressive as those in pre-COVID Clay County.

Figure 1 was generated using the Education Consumers Clearinghouse web tool to compare some of Kentucky’s very highest wealth districts third grade reading performance to that in Laurel County.

Figure 1

Figure 1 compares each school’s eligibility rate for the federal free and reduced cost school lunch program to the percentage of students scoring Proficient or more on the KSA. In addition to Laurel County’s elementary schools, plots are presented for the elementary schools in the Fort Thomas, Anchorage, Beechwood and Walton-Verona independent school districts in Northern Kentucky and the Louisville area.

First, you can see that even the highest poverty school in the independent districts, Walton-Verona, still has a school lunch rate over 15 points lower than the lowest poverty school in Laurel County, but Walton-Verona’s third grade reading proficiency in 2022 was lower than every one of the Laurel County schools. The same is true for the Beechwood Independent elementary school.

Even the wealthy schools in Ft. Thomas Independent and the very wealthy Anchorage Independent school don’t perform as well as a number of the Laurel County schools.

Next, check Figure 2, which compares the schools in Fayette County to Laurel County.

Figure 2

As you can see, no Fayette County school with anything close to the poverty rates in Laurel County comes close to the sorts of reading proficiency rates found in that Appalachian district. A handful of Fayette County schools with much lower poverty rates do score similarly to most of Laurel County’s schools, but their lunch eligibility rates generally start about 30 points lower.

And, no Fayette County school matches Laurel County’s Keavy Elementary for third grade reading performance.

Now, Figure 3 shows how Kentucky’s largest school district stacks up in a similar comparison.

 Figure 3

Pretty much, Figure 3 is a repeat story from that in Figure 2 with one notable exception. The Blue Lick Elementary School in Jefferson County posted higher than expected reading proficiency based on its high, 83% school lunch eligibility rate.

So, what is going on?

First, Laurel County’s results are somewhat of a surprise given the impact that COVID seems to have had on the Clay County schools. Clay County’s performance plots out generally a bit lower than Laurel County in 2022, though for the most part Clay County still plots above where you would expect to find them based on their school lunch rates.

In contrast, Laurel County stayed well above the pack, and the Keavy Elementary is actually the top performing school in Kentucky on the 2022 KAS for third grade scores. In part, this is likely due to Laurel County also having participated in the same Elgin Children’s Foundation reading project that created such good pre-COVID results in Clay County. Perhaps Laurel County did a better job during distance learning, maybe due to a better internet system.

But Blue Lick Elementary remains a total mystery. I do have feelers out, so stay tuned.

In any event, know that there is still evidence in Kentucky – even after COVID – that preparing teachers to teach reading in accordance with what science shows works best is still vital.

We absolutely have to get a whole lot more Kentucky teachers on board with this, though the resistance to change is a problem, as Courier-Journal reporter Mandy McLaren’s excellent series of articles on Between the Lines (subscription?) points out.

Far too many Kentucky teachers were taught far too many incorrect things about teaching reading, and changing that isn’t going to be easy.