Four states, three demographic groups!

MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2024

Reading scores, Grade 8: Last Saturday, Kevin Drum surprised us with a post about California's public school students. More specifically:

How well did California's eighth graders perform on the most recent NAEP reading test? Compared to their peers from other states, it seemed to us that the Cali kids had performed surprisingly well:

DRUM (6/22/24): Among the 50 states, California ranks 13th in reading for white students and 9th for Black students. (But a weaker 22nd for Hispanic students.)

As one of Kevin's graphics notes, nine states didn't have enough black kids to produce a representative sample, given Naep procedures. That means that Cali's kids came in 13th among the total 50, ninth among 41.

On balance, Cali's kids did pretty well. We got to wondering about the way Cali's scores compared to those from some other major states. We decided to look at four such states—two of them red, two blue.

A bit of nostalgia was involved. Here are some of the data we churned:

Average scores, Grade 8 reading, 2022 Naep

White kids:
U.S.: 267.11
California: 268.69
New York State: 273.14
Texas: 263.85
Florida: 264.92

Black kids: 
U.S.: 242.77
California: 245.42
New York State: 246.41
Texas: 246.71
Florida: 246.91

Hispanic kids: 
U.S.: 249.81
California: 249.32
New York State: 248.03
Texas: 248.21
Florida: 259.98

We see no particular bombshells there. For all Naep data, start here.

Quickly, a basic point:

According to a very rough rule of thumb, ten points on the Naep scale is often said to be the rough equivalent of one academic year. 

That's a very rough rule of thumb, but it gives you a general idea of what those statistical differences might (roughly) suggest. And yes, that includes the differences in average scores between those three demographic groups within those four large states.

A bit of nostalgia was involved in this effort. We thought back to the days when it was still possible to imagine that someone, somewhere, actually cared about something resembling this.

Those days are long, long gone. A large amount of pretense may have been involved in the expression of such apparent concerns. 

Still, you could still pretend.

Today, the public discourse is all about who can seem to be more senile, depending on the way you edit tiny bits of videotape from their recent public appearances. On balance, our discourse is an undisguised, rolling clown show—a gong show all the way down.

In some ways, the most interesting information we collected involved the demographic distribution of the eighth graders in those four large states. The Naep provided these data:

Student population, Grade 8, 2022 Naep
White / Black / Hispanic kids

U.S.: 45% / 15% / 29%
California: 18% / 4% / 58%
New York State: 40% / 16% / 30%
Texas: 28% / 12% / 51%
Florida: 35% / 21% / 36%

Just to be clear:

According to the data from the Naep, California's grade 8 population in 2022 was 18 percent white, 4 percent black, 58 percent Hispanic.  With respect to the other jurisdictions, you can take it from there.

(The last we looked, they were all good, decent kids. That includes the kids who may have lost their way due to mistreatment, anguish, stress, disorder, abuse, neglect.)

At one time, it was possible to imagine that someone somewhere actually cared about what occurs in our public schools. Back in the 1960s, Jonathan Kozol arrived on the scene, and this (briefly) became a major topic within the liberal world!

Not long ago, our nation's journalistic thought leaders were still pretending to conduct discussions of such matters. As everyone must surely know by now, those days are gone, long gone.

Not to forget these kids: But what about Asian ancestry kids? Citizens, thank you for asking:

Average scores, Grade 8 reading, 2022 Naep

Asian ancestry kids:
U.S.: 281.07
California: 282.97
New York State: 277.49
Texas: 286.07
Florida: 272.59

At one time, this sort of thing seemed like a matter of interest. Those days are gone, long gone.