Kentuckians: no longer poorly schooled?

Somewhat related to education, and ironic given Ohio stereotypes of Kentucky: Mean statewide SAT scores for college-bound seniors from both states have been released. Kentucky scores higher (source):

Kentucky:
Math, 570, up 5
Reading, 568, up1
Writing, 554, up 1

Ohio:
Math, 544, up 2
Reading, 534, down 2
Writing, 521, down 1

Ohio scores for reading and writing are dropping, too

So, though there still are a lot of ignernt Kentuckians, the college-bound ones seem to test better, at least the ones taking the SAT (most college bound Kentuckians going to the state system take the ACT).

A far cry from the days when Kentuckians used to say “Thank God for Misssissippi”, and apparently the state education standards that came out of the court-ordered education reform might have something to do with this:

Meanwhile, Kentucky Education Department spokeswoman Lisa Gross said Kentucky has such a low percent of students who take the SAT (6 percent of public school students this year) that state educators don't try to draw many conclusions from the data.

"But, we do hear from higher ed sources that those kids who've done well in writing - or even had good writing instruction - in high school tend to perform at higher levels in college," Gross said.

"We know that college work requires complex levels of writing, so teachers often use the mandated writing portfolios to nurture those.."

The College Board, who run the SAT, has district and school data (so it is possible to district-to- district & school-to-school comparisons for the metro area), but these are only available to school district officials (not available to the general public)

State level reports are available, and can be found here.