Report on NAEP to Kentucky Board of Education today didn’t get it right

So, here is the “rest of the story”

The Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) received a very disappointing presentation on the state’s performance in the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) today, and I think the state’s citizens deserve a more balanced picture.

The big problem was that the KBE presentation focused on using overall average student scores, “all student scores” as the NAEP terms it, to compare to other states. That creates highly misleading results because Kentucky is still about 75% white in its classrooms while across the nation the white percentage has now slipped below 50% and is far lower than that in a number of states. By only looking at all student scores, you are matching many whites in Kentucky against racial minorities in other states. Thanks to the achievement gaps, that is instantly inappropriate.

A much better picture arises when you break out the NAEP results by race and compare whites to whites, etc. I have done that in the blogs linked below, where you will find maps like this one that will show you how Kentucky really stacks up.

NAEP 2019 – How does Kentucky really compare to other states? Grade 4 Reading

NAEP 2019 – How does Kentucky really compare to other states? Grade 8 Reading

NAEP 2019 – How does Kentucky really compare to other states? Grade 4 Math

NAEP 2019 – How does Kentucky really compare to other states? Grade 8 Math

Also, don’t forget that the state of Mississippi just outscored us for both white and black students on the Grade 4 NAEP math and reading assessments in 2019. That’s a real shocker!