♪ We're getting a closer look at how Kentucky kids are recovering from COVID-19 learning losses.

Students in grades 4, 8, are tested every 2 years in reading and math and 2024 scores were released last week.

The Prichard Committee for Academic uses that data in its quote, Big, bold future national rankings report.

And today's Education Matters report.

Our Laura Rogers speaks with executive director Bridget blog.

And Bridgette, you all call this report card.

Really an indicator of if Kentucky is moving toward a more positive future or if we are falling behind in some areas and you are transparent and that does show some troubling trends.

>> let's start with the good news, the positives and we are showing some very strong rankings in certain areas, including 4th grade reading which we know literacy, really the foundation for so many other subjects.

That's right.

We rank 12th in the country right now for 4th grade reading, which is a climb from 29th in our last report 2 years ago.

>> So that's a tribute to our educators, our schools and our communities really doubling down to improve and to catch up from the COVID losses.

>> As for the other positives, what else did you find encouraging?

And these findings as an example, we are 4th in the nation in high school graduation.

And while we know high school graduation is not enough for our young people going on to some level of post-secondary education and training is critical.

Similarly, we're 4th in the nation in graduation from two-year institutions.

>> So Kentucky ends are moving on forward technical degrees and we're leading the nation in that area as well.

Mathematics.

We're starting to see a return to climbing the rankings ranking the highest we ever have in mathematics in the recent passage of the asked in Frankfort and the professional development dollars to support teachers is another good sign that we will continue to climb those rankings.

>> And that was always a very tough subject for me.

How at MIT are and still is honestly to this day now was in 8th grade math.

There were there were some mass course that we did find maybe weren't as strong as we would like to see them in an area that we want to work on.

>> But even though we're climbing or 32nd in the nation.

So we're not at the bottom, but were higher than we've been.

So we've got a lot of work to do without a doubt.

We want to celebrate where we see growth.

And this is one of the areas where we see growth and promise outside of education.

There's so many other areas that we are able to look at.

Our communities are able to look at that.

>> Baby's birth weight stevick engagement, voter turnout, things like that.

What else did you take away from this report and what are some areas that we?

That we're finding challenging as a society are as Kentuckyian so that we need to work on.

>> Yeah.

But the biggest challenge for us is the end goal and that's breaking cycles of generational poverty and improving family financial self sustainability and economic development.

And what we see is that we've actually fallen in the ranks when it comes to poverty were 4th from the bottom of the nation.

So that's a call to action to improve that indicator.

We have never has the state been able to improve that all the while we're improving these education indicators that should help to lead us to improving the indicator of poverty.

Another area is broadband access.

We know all states in the nation having experienced the COVID shutdowns recognize that broadband is important for remote access to work, remote access to health care and remote access to learning this commonwealth still still ranks in the 40's 40nd in the nation for broadband access.

And that's something we've really got to get right going into the future.

If we're going to continue to improve as a state support families and communities and improve our economic outlook and competitiveness.

>> Thank you so much for your insight and perspective on