The national assessment of educational progress (NAEP), which provides data on the national map of the report, is appointed by the Congress and is the largest national representative test for students. NAEP tests first apply In 1969S Today, mathematics and reading grades are given every two years of a wide sample of students in fourth and eighth grades.
Students behaved firmly in mathematics or even composed
In the fourth grade, the average mathematics rated slightly compared to 2022, ending a pandemic slide. In fact, white, black, Spanish and economic disadvantaged students all showed modest profits on average.
“In the fourth grade, it seems that no matter where the students are, they are improving,” says Lisa Ache, mathematics consultant at the Ministry of Public Instructions in North Carolina and a member of the National Governing Board for an assessment, which defines NAEP policy.
This said the results of math in fourth grade still remain below The levels before the 2019 papandemia, with one exception: Alabama was the only condition in which the average mathematical results of the fourth -graders exceeded the results of 2019 (in 2022. The legislants there there adopted a law Aimed at improving the possession of mathematics for all K-5 students in the state.)
But Covid-19 is not guilty. A longer view of the mathematical results of fourth-graders-and the achievements of students are more widely said that these results have begun to enter and even decrease before The pandemic. Mathematical results reached their peak around 2013. Many education researchers say NPR They are not sure whyS
“This is the question of a multi -stricker dollar,” says Dan Goldhaber, a researcher at the University of Washington, who studied the loss of pandemic training.
One thing we know is that the fourth grade mathematical performance improved at about the same time the old Federal Education Act known as no child left behind (signed in 2002) imposes strict requirements for new accounting S When these requirements were gradually out (in the beginning 2012) and eventually replaced (in 2015), mathematical performance, especially among the lower results, fell.
This is just one possible explanation for the slowdown that the pandemic has deteriorated. Goldhaber suggests that learning can also be returned from the great recession, from increased children’s access to smartphones and tablets, or from the pulsation effects of decline in reading children for fun. (Since 2017, less and fewer students have announced to NAEP that they are glad to read.)
“It’s important to understand what this more stagnation caused, if we get out of the pandemic pandemic,” Goldhaber says.
For the eighth -graders, mathematics assessments were held steadily in 2024 compared to 2022, but as with fourth -graders, they remained below the levels before the 2019 papandemia.
Moreover, the map of the nation’s reports emphasizes some concern for the differences that happen in these results. The highest efficient eighth-graders enhanced Mathematics compared to 2022, but the lowest executive students moved in the opposite direction, losing land in 2024.
“This actually caused an alarm,” Ashe says about expanding the difference in achievements. “We need to meet the needs of those students who are in the lower percentages because something we do does not work for these students.”
Overall, 39% of fourth -graders and 28% of eighth -graders have noted or above the NAEP standard for possession of mathematics. This is a little better than in 2022.
The NAEP report warns against comparing these results with state -reported numbers, since “the NAEP standard for proficiency represents competence to the challenging object, a standard that exceeds the standards of most countries for skill or achievement at class level.”
Reading: Bad news worsens
Reading results were not as reliable as they were in mathematics:
Fourth-graders continued to lose position in 2024, with reading results slightly lower, average than in 2022 and much lower than in 2019.
In 2019, 35% of fourth -graders were scored at or above the test standard.
This figure dropped to 33% in 2022 and, to 31% in 2024.
As with mathematics, these declines are not entirely the fault of the pandemic. Fourth grade reading results began to fall years earlier, around 2015.
Only one state, Louisiana, saw its fourth grade reading results exceeded the results of 2019.
It is worth remembering: this current round of fourth graders from the school year 2023-2024 was in kindergarten when the pandemia first closed the schools and many spent part or all learning in the first grade remotelyS
The results for reading eighth -graders for 2024 also dropped compared to 2022, with only 30% of students presenting themselves at or above the experienced standard of NAEP.
NAEP classifies students at one of the three levels of skills: advanced, skillful or lowest, basic. According to the results, the share of reading eighth graders below NAEP’s main standard “It was the biggest in the history of the assessment.”
Not only that, but the worst performing readers in 2024, they scored “lower than our lower performers made 30 years ago for the fourth and Eighth grade. This is how low these results have fallen historically, “says Peggy Carr, Commissioner of the National Center for Statistics of Education.
No country improved its eighth -grade reading results compared to 2022, let alone 2019.
The connection between poverty and presentation
This year, NAEP results include a new, more precise index for determining the social and economic status of students (SES), and the results show in details that teachers and researchers have long understood: that poverty and presentation are deeply related.
For example, the overwhelming majority (77%) of fourth grade students in the highest SES category, the most rich children, fulfilled above average to read the country.
Of the fourth-graders in the lowest SES category, however, the results are almost reversed, with only 34% presenting above the national average.
The results of the mathematical performance were similar.
As a positive note, while many areas of the big city have achieved important profits in fourth grade mathematics with their economically unequal students, a handful of areas made exceptionally Well, including the schools in Charlotte-Meklenburg in North Carolina, the schools of Gilford County (also in North Carolina), the city schools in Baltimore City and the unified school district in San Diego.
The missing school is hindering learning
When the students took NAEP’s latest grades, in the beginning of 2024 they were asked how many days had been absent the previous month. The results are slightly encouraging: a smaller percentage of fourth and eighth-graders report a missing five or more days of school in the last month compared to 2022.
But throughout the board, students with lower efficiency are more likely to report missing five or more days at school in the previous month than higher efficiency students.
To put it, the missing school means lack of learning.
When students miss 10% or more of the school yearThey are considered “chronic absent” and as NPR previously reportedThe coefficient of chronic absence doubled during the pandemic.
The relationship that NAEP shows between the missing school and the more academic achievements does not surprise Hedi Chang, head of attendance, an organization dedicated to the fight against chronic absences. “This is not just about academics,” she says of absences. “This affects the social development and the functioning of the executive branch.”
In order to continue on the path of improving attendance and in turn, students’ achievements, Chang offers areas to look at students who are missing from the largest school, and the obstacles they face.
“You may not be able to take all this, deal with everything at once,” says Chang. “You may need to deal with it in bits and pieces, by barrier or class or from this subgroup of schools.”
