Five Years: Gaps Moved In The Wrong Direction

| Post By Susan Perkins Weston|

Most of Kentucky’s achievement gaps grew worse between 2012 and 2017. While most historically underserved groups did see improvement, their more privileged classmates saw more improvement.

For example, averaging all assessed subjects, 2012 Kentucky results showed:

• 25.6 percent proficient or distinguished results for African American students
• 47.0 percent proficient or distinguished results for white (non-Hispanic) students
• Resulting in a 21.5 point gap between the two groups

By 2017, equivalent results showed:

• 29.3 percent proficient or distinguished results for African American students
• 54.8 percent proficient or distinguished results for white (non-Hispanic) students
• Resulting in an increased 25.5 point gap between the two groups

Here’s how the gaps shifted for selected student groups:

As noted in yesterday’s post, weighted average results improved for all of these groups except English learners. It is not that these groups have no progress. It is, however, a report that Kentucky has not narrowed most of its achievement gaps. In most cases, there has better progress for groups that were already ahead than for the groups that need to be accelerating and catching up. Where a gap has narrowed, the five-year improvement has been quite small.

Kentucky’s new accountability system calls for important new emphasis on these gaps, and that added focus is clearly needed. To meet those goals, Kentucky will need bolder strategies, stronger efforts, and deeper investments.

Gap patterns by subject are shown in more detail below.









Notes for Number Lovers: Percent proficient or distinguished for each subject come from KDE’s school report card portal, except that independent calculations were needed for students who are not English learners, who do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals, or who do not have identified disabilities. For the weighted average, elementary and middle school writing and language mechanics were combined into one subject score, with writing getting a 80% weight and language mechanics 20%: the same distribution the Department of Education used in Unbridled Learning calculations. Then those two scores and the other 11 subjects were summed together and divided by 13 to summarize the overall trend. Results for each group (used to calculate the gaps) are available for download here.