Key Takeaways from the Nation’s Report Card
By Courtney Vahle, Ed.D.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam has been given to students since 1969. This nationwide assessment produces important metrics about our country’s students. Here, we discuss nationwide and Missouri-specific trends from the 2024 data release.
INTRODUCTION
Standardized testing exists to give us snapshots into the state of education at the district, state, and national levels. State assessments such as the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests are given to all public school students in Missouri annually and assess English Language Arts and Mathematics skills in 3rd-8th grade students across the state. NAEP assessments are given to a representative sample of students throughout the country biannually to assess the Reading and Mathematics skills of 4th and 8th grade students.
These tests measure different skills, but are both important metrics for understanding where the students in our state stand. Below, we discuss five key takeaways from the most recent NAEP results, released in late January 2025.
Nationwide NAEP Performance (Source: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/)
1. Nationwide reading scores have significantly decreased since the last assessment in 2022 in keeping with a decade-long trend.
Reading scores dropped significantly at the national level and insignificantly at the state level for 4th and 8th graders from 2022.
Although the COVID pandemic surely exacerbated score declines, these trends existed prior to 2019. In fact, Reading scores have been on the decline for ten years.
2. Missouri did not differ significantly from the national numbers or 2022’s numbers in any of the four categories.
Although Missouri scores in 4th grade Reading, 8th grade Reading, and 8th grade Math decreased slightly from 2022, the decrease was not statistically significant. Likewise, there was a slight increase to 4th grade Math scores in Missouri, but it was not a significant increase. All four scores remain significantly below 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels.
The Missouri averages across all four tests did not differ significantly from the National Average.
3. National Math scores slightly improved in 4th grade and stagnated in 8th grade, but not enough to regain ground lost after the pandemic.
Nationally, 4th grade Math was the only test to exhibit a significant score improvement. However, the overall average score increase of 2 points was not enough to return to 2019 scores. The average 8th grade Math scores did not significantly differ from 2022’s score, and thus remains below pre-pandemic levels.
4. More than 1 in 3 students scored below basic proficiency in Reading.
An all time high proportion of Missouri 4th and 8th graders scored below the basic proficiency in Reading.
According to the NAEP website, “Fourth-grade students performing at the Basic level should be able to locate relevant information, make simple inferences, and use their understanding of the text to identify details that support a given interpretation or conclusion. Students should be able to interpret the meaning of a word as it is used in the text. Eighth-grade students performing at the Basic level should be able to locate information; identify statements of main idea, theme, or author’s purpose; and make simple inferences from texts. They should be able to interpret the meaning of a word as it is used in the text. Students performing at this level should also be able to state judgments and give some support about content and presentation of content.”
5. The gap between the top and bottom performing students continues to widen.
For example, in 8th Grade Math, 2024 scores did not differ significantly from those in 2022 on average. However, we saw a significant increase to scores for students in the 75th and 90th percentiles and simultaneous significant decrease to scores for students in the 10th and 25th percentiles.
The performance of the 10th percentile students dropped across all four tests (4th and 8th grade Math and Reading) compared to the previous test, leading to a widening gap between the highest and lowest performing students.
CONCLUSION
Although there is a tip toward recovery in 4th grade Math, Reading scores across grades remain low and are further decreasing in Missouri and across the nation. While one testing data point should not solely inform policy decisions, these results should be assessed in conjunction with trends from previous years and the results of other success measures to inform steps forward.
8th Grade Math Nationwide NAEP Performance by Percentile (Source: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reports/mathematics/2024/g4_8/?grade=8)