The just-released Nation’s Report Card presents two different stories. One carries measured good news. The other warns that time is running out to act. Together, they give an honest snapshot of where American education stands and what needs to happen to improve the life prospects of young people.
The test results come from the Long-Term Trend edition of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which has measured student achievement in reading and math since the early 1970s. Unlike the main NAEP, which tests 4th and 8th graders every two years, the long-term trend assessment samples 9- and 13-year-olds. Its format is largely unchanged, making it the closest thing the U.S. has to a consistent, decades-long academic record.
The story about 9-year-olds offers cautious grounds for hope. Average scores for this group rose 4 points since 2022, with reading essentially back to pre-COVID levels. More striking, the gains were driven primarily by the lowest-performing students, those at the 10th and 25th percentiles, who had fallen furthest during the pandemic.
In reading, 10th-percentile 9-year-olds gained 8 points since 2022, and in math, 9 points. This reverses the troubling pattern of the 2010s, when achievement gains went almost entirely to top-performing students. That these youngest students, who were still in preschool when COVID arrived and largely escaped its worst educational disruptions, are recovering at all, and that the recovery is reaching the children most in need, is an encouraging signal.
