We REALLY have some achievement gap issues!

Contained in the Media Advisory about the 2016 Unbridled Learning scores is Kentucky Commissioner of Education Stephen Pruitt’s admission that we have a continuing achievement gap problem.

Said Pruitt:

“We saw some improvements overall in scores, but there are still huge gaps between groups of students. We need to be honest with ourselves about the huge achievement and opportunity gaps that have persisted in our schools for far too long. We need to take collective ownership of this problem and undertake a culture change at KDE, in our schools and districts, and in our communities that is committed to preparing all students for a bright future.” I could not agree more.

So, for my first, quick look at achievement gap issues in the 2016 Unbridled Learning data, I decided to check out two schools that had enormous, 50-points plus white minus black achievement gaps for math in 2015 as discussed in our "Blacks Continue Falling Through Gaps in Louisville’s Schools, The 2016 Update" report, which came out back in February.

Those schools are the Dunn Elementary School and the Noe Middle School.

Very briefly, the very REAL problem in these two schools got even worse. Their already enormous gaps got even bigger in 2016!This table tells the tale.

dunn-and-noe-gap-growth-table

In the case of Dunn Elementary, the white minus black math achievement gap not only shot up from 50.5 points last year to 66.8 points in the new 2016 data, but black students in the school actually LOST significant ground, scoring only 14.6 percent proficient in math this year – a decay of nearly 10 points from 2015!The Noe picture is not quite that bad, though its already very large gap got still larger. Blacks did make a small amount of progress in math at Noe, and the black proficiency rate was even above the district-wide average. But, white scores shot up more, so the already enormous gap at Noe got bigger. In fact, Noe’s white score for math in 2016 was the second-highest in Jefferson County. The blacks ranked notably lower at 9th place. Why does Noe do so great for whites but notably less well for blacks?

Clearly, the worst situation is found at Dunn. While Dunn’s whites posted the eighth best math score in Jefferson County in 2016, its blacks ranked way down in 87th place out of the 91 schools that posted scores for blacks. Obviously, Dunn’s 2016 math proficiency rate for blacks of only 14.6 percent is notably lower than the math scores posted by a lot of West Side Jefferson County elementary schools where most blacks actually live. In the case of Dunn, at least, it looks like blacks might be better off by staying off the bus and attending their local West Side school.

By the way, Dunn isn’t unique in 2016 as the only elementary school with a white minus black achievement gap exceeding 50 percentage points. This year, Hawthorne Elementary, Coleridge-Taylor Elementary, and Alex R. Kennedy Elementary School also posted 50-plus gaps. The top-end gaps situation is getting worse in Louisville.

One more point: Dunn was rated as a “Distinguished” school again in 2016. Obviously, white minus black achievement gaps don’t matter in Unbridled Learning.

Tech Note: The scores listed above come from the 2015 and 2016 editions of the “Data Sets” Excel files for ASSESSMENT_KPREP_LEVEL which can be accessed here.