This is the final blog in the series on Why Kentucky Needs School Choice. This time, we examine how Black students in states with high percentages of students enrolled in charter schools performed on the NAEP Grade 8 Math Assessment.

This table was assembled using the NAEP Data Explorer web tool.

All of the listed states (except Kentucky) had the highest reported percentages of their total enrollment – at least 6% – located in charter schools in 2019. The percentages reported here were from the statistics for the NAEP 2019 Grade 8 Math Assessment.

The 1990 and 2019 NAEP Grade 8 Math Assessment Scale Scores for Black students in each state are also listed as found in the NAEP Data Explorer.

I then calculated the score differences for each state as shown in the far-right column. The table is rank ordered by those score changes.

I next inserted Kentucky’s information, positioning the Bluegrass State in the rankings according to its lowest-of-all-listed increase in Black Grade 8 NAEP Math scores between 1990 and 2019.

Once again, the Bluegrass State lands at the bottom of the list for score changes. That is certainly not what we need to see.

So, while vested self-interests in Kentucky try everything they can to kill the important school choice option of charter schools, the reality is that Black students certainly seem to benefit when such options are available in their state.

Kentucky, it’s time. Our kids of color, in fact all our kids, deserve better.