Kentucky is getting high marks when it comes to academic recovery in reading and math.

A new report by the Education Scorecard, which tracked academic achievement across the country from 2022 and to 2025, ranks Kentucky fifth and academic growth in reading and eighth in mathematics.

The Kentucky Department of Education's chief academic officer says the ranking shows the state's emphasis on early literacy and math initiatives, as well as more training and resources for educators.

All of that is paying off.

More on this and today's Education Matters reports.

The Read to Succeed act, which was passed in 2022, and our Numeracy Count Act, which was passed in 2024, give a foundation for this work and allows us to move forward in the same direction as a state.

But the policy levers alone aren't enough to identify, the needs of schools and districts and the supports that are provided so that each of those legislations allowed us to make an investment in professional learning.

Both for early literacy and for numeracy.

It also allowed us to signal quality around high quality instructional resources.

So the curriculum that would be aligned to the professional learning and that would increase access to grade level learning for each and every student across our state.

So I think that professional learning, coupled with the instructional materials and aligned resources, and then the supports that we have been able to create.

We've established two leadership networks, one of which is our Kentucky Early Literacy Leadership Network, but then also our Mathematics Leadership Collaborative.

So it's allowed us to walk alongside the districts to learn from them, to hear from them, and be able to address and identify the gaps that may be in our current level of support.

So we've worked very hard to be seen as and to be a true service provider as it relates to reading Succeed and the Numeracy Counts Act.

I thought it was so interesting that they found that the reforms are making a difference, but not everywhere.

And so I'm just very grateful, for the company that Kentucky has with those other states that are seeing an impact of comprehensive science, of reading reform.

I think the biggest thing that we can point to, we've had over 7000 educators participate in letters training.

So the language essentials for Teachers of Reading and spelling.

There's AK5 educator, professional learning that is it's very extensive.

It's a two year process.

But all of the feedback that we're receiving from teachers has been overwhelmingly positive.

Many of them say it's the best professional learning that they've had.

Many wish that they could have had access to it much earlier in their careers.

But there's also an administrator course.

And I think that that's super important because, you know, a building administrator sets the vision and expectations for the work that leaders should be addressing, barriers that are in the way of teachers being able to meet the needs of students.

And so I think, I think tackling both administrator learning as well as teacher supports has been really critical.

But the other thing I must add, there was language in read to succeed and it lives now.

And KRS 158.305 that allowed us to push on comprehensive quality curriculum that is aligned to the science of reading, for K-3.

And so what we've seen, we've seen districts not only making adoptions at K-3, but to support K-5.

But then also, when they start to see outcomes, when they start to see that students have greater access to grade level learning.

We're seeing higher adoptions in middle school as well.

And so I think we've really been able to push on high quality instruction.

K-8, and in its high schools, a little bit of a difference.

But the reforms gave us that foundation to signal quality around instructional resources as well.

Change such as this does take time.

In in many other scenarios, especially around curriculum implementation, it takes about 3 to 5 years of affective implementation to start seeing an impact on student outcomes.

So we knew that there would likely be a correlation between not only the professional learning, but the that the curriculum and curriculum based professional learning on student outcomes.

That I'll be very honest, we're not there yet.

We have we have much more work to do.

You know, we all want to see more and more Kentucky students meeting grade level expectations for both literacy and math K-12.

So our work is not done, but it is encouraging.

And I'm so thankful that the districts are starting to see an impact.

And I think that will encourage others to, to consider what is working across the state and, and start to make some of those changes.

If they had not yet done so.

The report also listed what it calls districts on the rise, highlighting those districts that showed exceptional progress in both reading and math.

Six Kentucky schools made that list Anderson County, Corbin Independent, Marion County, Ohio County, Perry County, and Pike County.