New Stanford data points to serious achievement gaps in Louisville

A research team at Stanford University just released a huge report several days ago dealing with “Local education inequities across U.S.” The Stanford team collected testing data and other information on every school district in the nation. Then, using the National Assessment of Educational Progress as a common ruler, the Stanford team says they placed test results from 50 different state systems onto a common grading scale so that meaningful analysis between states and districts is now possible. This enormous database is available online, for free (registration is required) at the Stanford Education Data Archive.

It didn’t take long for people to jump into this new treasure trove of school performance data. One of the first groups is from the New York Times newspaper, where a team already assembled some really interesting comparison graphics in an article titled “Money, Race and Success: How Your School District Compares.”

I decided to see how the Times rated Kentucky’s largest school district’s performance.

The results aren't pretty.

In the first Times graphic, “Educational attainment in each school district in the U.S.,” I learned that overall Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) kids test out about seven tenths of a year behind the nationwide average for sixth graders academic performance.

Things got more interesting when I found the JCPS data points in this next graphic, which shows on a graph of parent economic level versus test scores how whites, blacks and Hispanics perform in each district. This is a bit busy, so let me explain.

JeffCo White-Black-Hispanic Gaps Graphic from NY Times Stanford Study

First, this graphic only includes districts that enroll at least 100 whites, 100 blacks and 100 Hispanics.

Three colored circles separately show each district’s performance for whites, blacks and Hispanics. The pink disks show how the whites score, the blue discs show how the Hispanics’ score, and the green disks show the blacks’ results.

These disks are plotted vertically using the scale on the right side of the graphic, which runs from students scoring three grade levels below the average sixth grade performance for all students to more than 3 grade levels above. The horizontal scale shows relative economic status of the parents, with results for students with wealthier parents plotted towards the right side of the graphic.

With a grade level score of 0.2, JCPS whites score about average for all students (whites, blacks and Hispanics averaged together). In addition, the relatively low vertical placement of the Jefferson County white’s disk shows the district’s whites don’t do particularly well compared to their racial counterparts in many other large school systems.

However, as you can see by the large number of pink disks located further right than the one for Jefferson County, economic status of white students’ parents in Jefferson County is towards the low end of the distribution for whites.

Next, check out where the JCPS black students plot out, shown by the green disk pretty much near the bottom left of the entire graphic. The district’s black students perform 1.9 grade levels behind the overall all student average.

Perhaps of more concern, there are a good number of green circles further to the left of Jefferson County, indicating even lower economic status for those blacks’ parents, but the circles plot higher, indicating better academic performance.

Chicago’s blacks, for example, have more poverty than JCPS blacks per the Stanford data but score 1.6 grade levels behind the overall all student average, which is 0.3 of a grade level ahead of Louisville.

Atlanta’s blacks are also notably poorer, but score 1.5 grade levels below the national average and 0.4 of a grade level better than Jefferson County.

Richmond, Virginia’s blacks are also poorer but score 0.7 of a grade level better than Louisville.

To be fair, there are a number of large school systems that have lower black poverty levels and also lower academic performance than in Louisville, such as the Los Angeles system where blacks score 2.0 grade levels below average. However, among the larger black population school systems, Jefferson County clearly isn’t performing terribly well.

Also, the gap between whites and blacks in Jefferson County – as is true across the nation – is a problem, as well.

This gets even more problematic when you consider another blog I posted on April 22, 2016 that shows among the 50 largest enrollment school districts in the country, JCPS ranks 14th for per pupil funding as of 2013.

JeffCo PP Expenditures Ranked with 50 Largest US School Systems

The bottom line: just as we recently showed in our Blacks Continue to Fall Through the Gaps report, the new studies from Stanford and the NY Times confirm that Jefferson County isn’t performing very well for either its white or black students and the achievement gaps are considerable.

Furthermore, the data indicate it is going to take more than just increased school spending to fix this problem.