Press Release

February 11, 2025

Contact: Sam Stockwell
samuel_stockwell@gse.harvard.edu
617.495.0342

Kentucky Ranked 13th Among States in Math Recovery and 11th in Reading Between 2019 and 2024

Between 2022 and 2024, students in Kentucky made up close to a third of a grade level on average in math.

Chronic absenteeism has risen sharply in Kentucky, from 18% of students in 2019 to 30% in 2023, significantly slowing recovery efforts in some districts.

(February 11, 2025) In its third year of reporting on the pace of academic recovery measures in districts nationwide, the Education Recovery Scorecard (a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University) is issuing its annual report on district-level student growth in math and reading.

The latest report also provides the first high resolution picture of where Kentucky students’ academic recovery stood in Spring 2024, just before federal relief dollars expired in September. While the National Assessment of Educational Progress described changes in average achievement by state, we combine those scores with district scores on state assessments to describe the change in local communities throughout Kentucky. Here’s what we found:

• Kentucky ranked 13th among states in terms of recovery in math and 11th in reading between 2019 and 2024. In the period between 2022-2024, Kentucky did even better, ranking 8th in math and 6th in reading.
• Between 2022 and 2024, students in Kentucky made up close to a third of a grade level on average in math (.29 grade level equivalents) and was one of eight states to have a positive trend in reading (making up .07 grade level equivalents). Still, in 2024, students remained a third of a grade level behind in math (.33 grade level equivalents) and over a third of a grade level behind in reading (.34 grade level equivalents). In other words, the loss in math achievement in Kentucky is 33% percent of the progress students typically make annually between grades 4 through grade 8.
• 27 percent of students in Kentucky are in districts that have recovered in reading, which exceeds the national average of 11 percent. Yet 84 percent of students are in districts whose average math achievement in 2024 remained below their own 2019 levels and 73 percent are in districts whose average reading achievement remained below 2019 levels. The average student in districts such as Bullitt, Henderson, Pulaski, and Jefferson remains at least half of a grade equivalent below their 2019 mean achievement in math; the same is true for reading in Bullitt, Jefferson, Shelby, Warren, and Scott.
• Still, there are many bright spots: mean achievement for students in districts including Jessamine, Laurel, and Christian has nearly recovered to 2019 levels in math and districts including Boone, McCracken, and Madison have surpassed 2019 levels in math. Boone, McCracken, Madison, Pulaski, Pike, Henderson, Laurel, and Christian have reached or surpassed 2019 levels in reading.
• A sharp rise in chronic absenteeism (students missing more than 10 percent of a school year) from 18 percent of students in 2019 before the pandemic to 30 percent in 2023 is slowing the recovery in many districts in Kentucky.
• Kentucky received $3.2 billion in federal pandemic relief for K-12 schools—or roughly $4,700 per student—which is more than the national average of $3,700 per student. Nationally, our analysis suggests that the dollars did contribute to the academic recovery, especially when targeted at academic catch-up efforts such as summer learning and tutoring.

The federal pandemic relief dollars may be gone, but the pandemic’s impact lingers in many Kentucky schools.  Even without federal relief dollars, states could be targeting continuing federal Title I dollars and state dollars to implement interventions which have been shown effective, such as tutoring and summer learning.  State leaders, mayors, employers and other community leaders should join schools to redouble efforts on the shared challenge of reducing student absenteeism.

One of the project leaders, economist Tom Kane at Harvard, said: “Lowering absenteeism generates tremendous bang-for-the-buck.  Regular attendance benefits the student as well as her classmates.  And taxpayers are paying for the seat whether it’s occupied or not.”

Contact: Sam Stockwell, samuel_stockwell@gse.harvard.edu, (617) 495-0342