The achievement gaps that are supposed to be addressed by No Child Left Behind and other laws are still significant. The Louisville Currier-Journal reports today that the percentages of white and Asian students who are proficient are 10 to 20 percent higher than for blacks, depending on test and grade level.

There are several causes for this situation, but as one official said: "In some of our schools, African-American students tend to be assigned to lower-level classes and when they are put up against their counterparts, they are scoring lower because they didn't have the same access to higher-level courses. They also tend to be paired with the least effective teachers."

And why might they be paid with the least effective teachers? Perhaps there's little or no financial or professional reward for teachers who take on the neediest students. Kentucky is a right to work state, but I suspect that the union logic operates in schools anyway. If pay is based on seniority, and seniority allows a teacher to cherry pick his or her classroom, why wouldn't the most experienced--and many times, the most effective--teachers shy away from the most challenging students?

For Kentucky-specific analysis of education, see the Bluegrass Institute. It recommends, among other things, that the commonwealth "Follow Tennessee’s lead. The Volunteer State has used a powerful assessment program known as the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System for nearly two decades. It gives everyone a good idea of the value added by each teacher for each student during each school term. Reports show that Tennessee is one of the few states to show improvement on the NAEP."