In responding to average IQ extrapolations from NAEP 8th grade mathematics and reading by race, commenter Lot questioned the validity of the approach:

Naep isn’t an attempt at measuring intelligence, and has a poorer, unrepresentative selection due to excluding private school students. It also likely understates non-H white IQ since they are more likely to go to private schools. You can see this in the smaller B-W and larger A-W gaps.

I’d had similar thoughts. But while these things sounds plausible, the available data contradicts them.

Twenty years ago, Asians only outscored whites by 4 points on the 500-point scale test in mathematics. In 2019, Asians outscored whites by 22 points on it. Twenty years ago, whites actually outscored Asians by 6 points on the 500-point scale test in reading. In 2019, Asians outscored whites by 13 points on it. Extrapolating from the same formula for the 2019 IQ estimates showing Asians with a 6.9 point advantage over whites would have shown whites with a 0.5 IQ point edge over Asians in 2000.

Meanwhile, the percentage of students enrolled in private schools has decreased over the same period of time. It’s possible that while the share of students attending public schools has increased, the composition of that student body vis-a-vis the private school counterpart has changed, but I’m not aware of that being the case.

The increasing divergence between whites and Asians observed on college entrance exams is thus showing up on low-stakes middle school tests as well:

Is Tiger Momming that effective? Are Asian kids less susceptible to ceaseless social media distractions than white kids are? Is it a consequence of the broad “Asian” category shifting away from working- and middle-class East Asian immigrants decades ago and more towards upper caste Indians today?