Most American students are still performing below their pre-pandemic counterparts in reading and math, while the yawning gap between high-achieving and low-performing students got even wider, data from “the nation’s report card” shows.
Results released Wednesday from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, paint a sobering picture of academic haves and have-nots. Scores are increasing for many students who already do well, while struggling students stagnated or fell even further behind their peers. That’s making a trend that began about a decade ago even more pronounced.
In some cases that divide was historic: Lower-performing fourth and eighth graders posted the worst reading scores in over 30 years. In eighth grade math, the gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students was the widest in the test’s history.
“The news is not good,” Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told reporters on Tuesday. “Student achievement has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, reading scores continue to decline, and our lowest performing students are reading at historically low levels.”
Scores saw a dramatic decline in 2022 after students endured two disrupted pandemic school years marked by closures, quarantines, and remote learning. But in 2024, reading scores declined even more for both fourth and eighth graders.
“This is a major concern — a concern that can’t be blamed solely on the pandemic,” Carr said. “Our nation is facing complex challenges in reading.”
Fourth grade math was the lone bright spot, with average student scores ticking up two points on the 500-point scale. But much of that increase was driven by improvement among top performers.
Eighth grade math scores held steady, with gains among higher-performing students canceling out declines among lower-performers.
