U.S. students鈥� reading scores have plunged further on the test known as the nation鈥檚 report card, while math scores have stagnated for 8th graders and ticked up slightly only for 4th graders鈥攄emonstrating that the nation鈥檚 children are still struggling to rebound from devastating academic losses supercharged by the pandemic.
69传媒 scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress fell two points, on average, for both 4th and 8th graders, sustaining a steady decline in the subject that predates COVID-era disruptions.
The drop from the historic low scores of 2022 comes despite an unprecendented infusion of federal funding that flowed into schools, fueling tutoring and other interventions aimed at addressing learning loss.
In math, 8th grade scores were unchanged from 2022, the last time the test was given. Fourth graders鈥� scores rose two points, but remained below their performance in 2019.
The poor results overall obscure trends below the surface, including deepening divides between the highest- and lowest-performing students鈥攁 gap that has been growing since before the pandemic.
Kids in both grades who scored in the top 75th percentile in math gained ground between 2022 and 2024, while children who scored in the bottom 25th percentile fell further in 8th grade and made no progress in 4th. In reading, lower-scoring students saw bigger declines than their higher-scoring peers at both grade levels.
鈥淭he news is not good,鈥� Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP, said in a call with reporters on Tuesday.
鈥淲e are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic, and when we are seeing signs of recovery, they鈥檙e mostly in math, and largely driven by high-performing students,鈥� she said. 鈥淟ow performing students are struggling, especially in reading.鈥�
Some states have 鈥渂een able to buck the pattern,鈥� Carr said, noting that Louisiana saw 4th grade reading scores that were higher than pre-pandemic averages, and Alabama has surpassed pre-pandemic scores in 4th grade math.
On the whole, though, 鈥渟tudents are not where they need to be, or where we want them to be,鈥� Carr said.
The results come as schools continue to feel the after-effects of the pandemic, with teachers reporting worsening morale, schools still experiencing high levels of chronic absenteeism, and districts seeing the end of $190 billion in federal COVID relief aid.
Research has shown that this historic infusion of funding did lead to improved academic outcomes, especially in low-income districts.
But since academic-recovery efforts began, researchers have warned that the scope and scale of getting millions of students to read and do math at grade level wasn鈥檛 grand enough鈥攖hat returning to pre-pandemic levels of student achievement would require several times more funding, and deeper systemic changes to how schools operate.
And the years-long downward trajectory in student scores, especially in reading, imply problems that addressing the effects of the COVID era alone won鈥檛 solve.
鈥淭his is a major concern, a concern that cannot be blamed solely on the pandemic,鈥� said Carr. 鈥淭his is not just a pandemic story. Our nation is facing complex challenges in reading.鈥�
Historic percentages of students are reading below the 鈥渂asic鈥� level
69传媒 scores have faltered over the last decade, flattening and then starting to decline in 2019.
Now, more 8th graders than ever before are scoring below NAEP 鈥渂asic,鈥� the lowest benchmark on the test. One-third of 8th graders are below that mark, while 40 percent of 4th graders fall below it as well.
Studies have shown that scoring basic on NAEP is roughly equivalent to scoring 鈥減roficient鈥� on many state tests. 69传媒 who fall below it lack important reading comprehension skills; for example, a 4th grader scoring below basic might not be able to determine the main idea or purpose of an informational text.
Scores are down, or remain unchanged, across student subgroups by race, gender, and socioeconomic status in reading. Most of the patterns at the national level are reflected across different student groups, Carr said.
69传媒鈥� reading achievement has marched steadily downward even as dozens of states have launched large-scale transformations to how they approach early literacy instruction.
As the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� movement has gained traction, at least 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or implemented other policies requiring schools to use evidence-based methods for teaching young students how to read. The majority have passed within the last five years.
In part, this legislative trend was spurred on by the success of Mississippi, which saw big gains in its 2019 NAEP reading results after making a host of changes to reading curriculum, teacher-training methods, and instructional coaching starting in 2013. (Mississippi鈥檚 scores have remained flat since 2019.)
But only one state, Louisiana, has exceeded its pre-pandemic achievement levels in 4th grade reading. (It鈥檚 now at the national average for reading achievement.) The state mandates teachers complete a literacy training鈥攁 common requirement among states with reading laws鈥攁nd provides a teacher-developed curriculum designed to grow students鈥� background knowledge, a key predictor of reading comprehension ability.
Louisiana is evidence that states can still make gains, Carr said. 鈥淚 would not say that hope is lost, and I would not say that we cannot turn this around. It鈥檚 been demonstrated that we can, even in reading.鈥�
Even so, there鈥檚 evidence to suggest that students are growing less comfortable overall with reading and writing鈥攁nd that this is correlated with lower performance.
In NAEP student surveys, lower-performing 4th graders were less likely than their higher-performing peers to say that their teachers asked them to write long answers to reading tests or assignments more than five times a year. Lower-performing students also said they felt less confident in their reading skills.
The pandemic created an urgent need for academic intervention to address student motivation and well-being, said Susanna Loeb, the executive director of the National Student Support Accelerator, which aims to advance high-impact tutoring as an academic-recovery strategy.
Ensuring all students can meet certain indicators of performance is still important, she said, but 鈥渋t鈥檚 not just a question of holding states to higher standards now.鈥�
In math, kids make progress, but big gaps remain
Math results show a more complex picture than reading.
In 8th grade, scores for students in the top 75th percentile increased, while those of students in the bottom 25th percentile decreased, leading to no change on average across the grade level. This pattern of diverging performance among high- and low-performing students echoes similar trends on a number of other exams, including global tests like the Program for International Student Assessment.
Fourth graders鈥� math scores rose, but students at or below the 25th percentile did not see any change. And despite overall gains, 4th grade scores are still three points below the 2019 average.
Black, Hispanic, and white 4th graders鈥� scores increased, while Hispanic 8th graders scores fell.
In general, 鈥渒ids are moving in the right direction,鈥� said Lisa Ashe, a secondary mathematics consultant for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, the group that sets policy for NAEP.
But the continued downward slide among low-performers is concerning, she said.
鈥淚 think we need to take a really, really hard look at what we鈥檙e doing or not doing,鈥� Ashe said. 鈥淲hat are the differences between how the system is supporting all students?鈥�
As in reading scores, some states and districts stand out as bright spots. Alabama 4th graders exceeded their pre-pandemic achievement levels.
That suggests that other education leaders might want to examine Alabama鈥檚 policies closely, said Ashe, noting that the state passed legislation in 2022 that mandated math coaching for K-5 teachers. The law also requires screening for elementary students struggling in the subject.
Big city school districts post some gains in math on NAEP
Large-city districts also outperformed the average 4th grade math gains. (In these districts, reading scores were not measurably different from 2022 or fell from 2022 to 2024, except for in the Atlanta school system, which saw 4th grade reading scores increase.)
鈥淥ur improvement is nearly twice that of the nation as a whole,鈥� said Ray Hart, the executive director at the Council of the Great City 69传媒. (Hart is a member of the board of trustees of Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit publisher of Education Week.)
Some of these districts have the same growing divide between high- and low-performers that the nation faces as a whole, but others鈥攊ncluding Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Baltimore, and the District of Columbia鈥攕aw gains for students at the 25th percentile, too.
Hart credits effective use of federal pandemic recovery aid with the rise in student scores. 鈥淭he funds that were made available by both the Trump and the Biden administration have yielded a strong return on investment,鈥� Hart said.
Now, though, pandemic relief dollars have expired, and the future of federal funding directed at academic recovery is uncertain.
Trump and his advisers have voiced support for shifting more responsibility for policy and education funding to the states.
Despite the unsettled federal landscape, experts offered clear guidance for states and districts: Focus on the lowest-performers, the students losing the most ground.
鈥淔or a decade, these students have been on the decline,鈥� said Lesley Muldoon, the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. 鈥淭hey need our urgent attention and our best efforts.鈥�
