It’s disappointing — but not surprising — that results of the 2017 Kansas Assessment Program show that most Kansas high school students are not meeting state standards and that significant gaps persist between wealthy and poor and between whites and minorities.

The end result is likely to have a significant impact on what the Kansas Supreme Court requires the state to spend on public school funding. The court has ruled that the current school funding formula is inequitable and that the current level of funding is inadequate to meet the needs of public school students. The court has given the state until April 30, 2018, to replace the system.

The Kansas State Department of Education recently released the results of the 2017 reading and math assessments. An analysis of those results by the Journal-World showed that the majority of high school students did not meet state standards in reading and math and that large gaps existed between economic and racial subgroups of students.

Among high school students, students not on free or reduced-price meal programs were more than three times as likely to score at or above grade level on state math exams than students on free or reduced-price meals. And they were nearly two and a half times more likely to score well on English language arts exams.

Fewer than 9 percent of African-American high school students and only about 10 percent of Hispanic students scored at or above grade level in math, compared with nearly 29 percent of their white counterparts.

High school sophomores are required to take the math and English assessments. Just 24 percent of them met statewide standards in math and just 29 percent met standards in English-language arts. Such scores should be alarming to those concerned about the state’s future.

Money isn’t the only way to solve the state’s education issues. For example, the new Kansans Can initiative, which is inspiring seven school districts across the state to rethink the way education is delivered in the hopes of developing a new model of education delivery, is equally as important. But the KAP test scores give credence to the Kansas Supreme Court’s multiple rulings in the education case. Legislators must finally find a way to invest more in public education and do so in a way that is fair and equitable to all of Kansas school districts.