2009 NAEP: Fourth grade gaps by race and income

Kentucky's newest science gaps still show important achievement gaps by race and poverty.  In fourth grade, the weaknesses look like this:

As you can see, we are still allowing both race and poverty to stunt our children's futures.  The gap between white and African-American students remains large and statistically significant, as does the gap between students who do and do not qualify for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program.  Plus, we cannot use one gap to explain the other: these numbers suggest that we have a race problem separate from poverty and a poverty problem separate from race.

Our problems are not as grave as the nation's--Kentucky students in all four groups have a statistically significant lead on students from the same background nationwide--but they certainly signal that we need to do much more to ensure that all children are well and fairly prepared for the future they are all going to share.