Today, mathematics and reading grades are given every two years of a wide sample of students in fourth and eighth grades; The 12th graders receive them every four years. NAEP also administers voluntary evaluations in other subjects outside the congress term.
What to do from the test scores
Reading results, immersed for 12th graders, with the exception of students with the most achievements, compared to 2019, the last time this test was applied. Compared to the first grades’ NAEP reading, in 1992, the average result of today is 10 points lower.
“The results for our lowest effectiveness students are at historically low levels-continuing downturns, which began more than a decade ago,” said Matthew Soldier, acting director of IES, to reporters. “My predecessor warned of this trend and its predecessor also warned this trend. And now I warn you about this trend.”
The 2024 assessment tests students for understanding skills and examines them for learning and engagement opportunities in and out of school.
Twelfth grade mathematical results dropped by the same amount as reading results and were 3 points lower than in 2005, the first time this version of the mathematics test was administered.
“These results need to galvanize all of us in order to take coherent, focused actions to accelerate students’ education,” Solder said.
Among the eighth -graders, the average scientific assessment dropped by 4 points compared to 2019. Students results decreased for both low and high -level students.
In addition to the measurement of students’ academic achievements, NAEP also examines things such as the level of comfort of students with certain subjects and their visit. In these studies, a smaller share of eighth-graders shows high levels of trust in their scientific skills compared to their colleagues in 2019.
And nearly one-third of the 12th graders report that three or more schools have disappeared during the month before taking the grade in 2024, an increase from 2019.
How changes to the education department affect students’ grades
Legitimate, federal government There is no force Above what is taught in schools. So, while the release on Tuesday measures students’ achievements with President Biden, experts avoid linking the results of NAEP to each particular administration.
“The federal government is in a unique position with these test results to be the US Education Dashboard to tell us what is happening and for whom,” says Nat Mulkus, Deputy Director of Educational Policy at the Conservative American Institute of Enterprises. “(This) does not mean that it has the ability to correct these problems. It is a job for the countries.”
But behind the scenes of federal changes have There was an influence on how the National Report card was administered, according to a senior employee at the National Education Statistics Center (NCES), which administers NAEP.
The employee who informs reporters on condition of anonymity confirmed that the abbreviations in the US Education Division leave only two senior employees appointed to NAEP and stated that the NSS relies on additional support from colleagues in other departments to remove the new release.
NCES confirmed that in order to execute the mandates of congress testing in 2026 and 2028, US Education Minister Linda McMahon approved a refusal to add at least eight staff positions before the end of the year.
Marty West is at the Massachusetts Council for Elementary and Secondary Education and is a deputy chairman of the National Governing Board for Evaluation (NAGB), which sets the NAEP policy. He says he is confident in the ability of the department to comply with the NAEP deadlines, moving forward: “Preparation for the tests that will be administered in early 2026, for example, it really started five years ago and it was far on the way until the spring of 2025.”
There will also be less time for implementation. This spring, NAGB has reduced around a dozen scheduled grades-fourth grade science, US history in the United States and writing the fourth, eighth and 12th grade, which should be administered over the next seven years.
“It was not too unusual about the history of the program,” West says of the restructuring of the evaluation graph. “We felt (it) was an important step so that we could allow our NCES colleagues to focus their energy on the tests we thought were the most important.” These include mathematics and reading tests.
NAGB is an independent, non -partisan organization made up of state and local representatives.
