It’s a sad history.

Kentucky’s 2022 white minus Black Grade 4 Reading proficiency gap of 19 points from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is not statistically significantly different from any earlier year all the way back to 1992.

In recent years, even Kentucky’s white students’ scores have been in a statistically significant decline. The 2022 NAEP Grade 4 Reading proficiency rate for the state’s white students is not significantly different from way back in 1998. That’s a quarter of a century with nothing to show for it.

So, that’s a 3-decades long education history lesson, and it isn’t a pretty story for Kentucky, especially for the state’s Black students.

It’s time to change this history. Kentucky’s education system especially owes it to the state’s Black students to do so.

NAEP scores extracted from the NAEP Data Explorer.