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It’s an understatement to say that the most recent NAEP results from 2024 were less than encouraging. Most students are still performing below pre-pandemic levels, which means we haven’t been able to recoup the learning loss that occurred over the two years when classes were disrupted by Covid-19. In 2024, the average reading score for the nation at grade 12 — kids about to graduate from high school — was 3 points lower than in 2019. Compared to the first reading assessment administered in 1992, the average score for 12th graders was 10 points lower in 2024. Additionally, in grades 4 and 8, scores that had already fallen in 2022 fell even further in 2024. The average score in both grade levels fell 2 points from 2022 and 5 points from 2019.
Y’all, that is not good.
4th Grade Reading NAEP 1992-2024
8th Grade Reading NAEP 1992-2024
Even worse is the expansion of a disturbing trend in educational outcomes for U.S. students. In the graphs at left, the average score is in the center, with high performing students (by percentile) above and low performing students below. Remember that the average scores for 4th and 8th grade reading both fell by 5 points compared to pre-pandemic levels and the graphs show that all students, regardless of performance level, were still not back to 2019 levels. But notice that the higher performing students fell by just 1 point in the 90th percentile and 3 points in the 75th percentile in 4th, and 2 points and 3 points for those same percentiles in 8th. But the lowest performers fell further: 8 points (25th pct) and 10 points (10th pct) in 4th, and 7 and 9 points for the same percentiles in 8th. So while high performers in both 4th and 8th grade fell by an average of 2-2.5 points since 2019, 4th and 8th grade low performers fell an average of 8-9 points. We can look at these scores for both grade levels and see that this trend between high- and low-performers has been present for about 10 years, but now it is more pronounced. For low performers, these are the worst reading scores in 30 years.
4th Grade NAEP Math 1992-2024
8th Grade Math NAEP 1992-2024
The situation is also present in math even though the gains and losses are smaller. In both 4th and 8th grade math, high performers improved slightly while low performers lost ground. The exception is grade 4 math; almost all students in grade 4 improved in 2024, but not to the same degree. Just as the fall was greater for low performers in reading, the gains in math are smaller for this group. High performers in 4th grade improved 2-3 points to pre-pandemic levels while those in the 25th percentile improved just 1 point, leaving them behind pre-pandemic levels by 5 points. The very lowest performers, those in the 10th percentile, were down 1 point from 2022 and 8 points from 2019. In 8th grade math, the pattern is clearer: high performers improved their scores 2-3 points over 2022 while low performers lost 2-5 points over the same period. None of the students approached pre-pandemic levels. Twelfth grade math shows a similar pattern of less loss, more loss for these groups.
There’s some additional evidence that bears noting. The 8th grade reading data show average scores were down for both economically disadvantaged (ED) and non-disadvantaged (NED) kids alike, but ED kids were 2 points lower overall. Kids in the 25th percentile scored lower than 2022 in both groups, but ED kids were 3 points lower than NED kids in this percentile. Kids in the 75th percentile in both groups were unchanged, meaning they held steady for the same period. There’s also data here that show White low-performing kids are losing ground compared to previous years. All kids were down an average of 5 points from 2019 but White low-performers were even lower at -7. Hispanic students lost ground at every performance level between 2019 and 2024 but the low performers lost 9 points while the high performers only lost 4.
NAEP 4th Grade Math 2022-2024
One more unusual thing: it appears that math achievement is steadier/better than reading, which is not what we expected post-pandemic. Research after Hurricane Katrina indicated that learning loss was likely to be much worse in math. Although all states are below 2019 achievement levels in math, between 2022 and 2024, most states are holding steady or increasing. The only exception was Nebraska, which lost ground. I think we have to remember that holding steady at an already low point still isn’t great and what gains there were, were small and mostly confined to the high performers.
All of this begs the question of why this is happening. Here are some possible culprits:
- One major change that emerged from the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of screens for instruction and what we’ve seen in audits is that screen work is generally very low level and not engaging. Less engagement = less retention of the learning.
- Another factor may be the widespread exodus from teaching, leaving districts scrambling to fill positions and forcing them to settle for less than fully qualified personnel. NAEP includes some interesting survey data and in 2024, 46% of 4th grade teachers and 39% of 8th grade reported being satisfied with their jobs. This is a significant decrease over prior years. This is not to say that an untrained teacher won’t try their best, but they don’t have the educational background or expertise to fall back on when things are getting off track.
- Still another issue may be the upheaval surrounding the shift away from balanced literacy back to an emphasis on phonics without helping kids focus on comprehension of actual texts. We have seen a sharp uptick in the use of created texts — texts meant to fulfil a particular reading level — instead of authentic texts written by established children’s authors. Created texts are almost always less engaging and fail to build vocabulary in the same way that an authentic text does. Physical books are becoming a rarity; we have observed a lot of classrooms across the country that are defaulting to short text excerpts, screens, and sometimes to video read-alouds instead of physical books read in their entirety. These just aren’t going to produce the same results.
- Another culprit may simply be the lack of a written curriculum that prioritizes and refines objectives for the specific district and defines mastery for teachers so they know what students should know or be expected to do and by what point in the sequence.
- Or, perhaps the existing curriculum or curriculum resources aren’t deeply aligned to the content, cognitive demand, and contexts required by state tests. This seems to be particularly true in states with robust exams like Illinois and Massachusetts, but it’s evident almost everywhere.
It may be any one of these or all of these, but I suspect it’s a little bit of everything: a perfect storm that has American students caught in its vortex. If I had to strategize how to address this, the first things I would mandate are authentic texts wherever possible, physical books in kids’ hands, and a more balanced approach to literacy that uses phonics and real-world decoding and comprehension practice on actual books.
One things is very clear. If we do nothing, it’s only going to get worse.
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