National Assessment of Educational Progress Story Archives

Latest National Assessment Shows Lowest Math, Reading Scores In 50 Years

The National Assessment of Educational Progress released its long-term trend assessment Wednesday, showing the largest declines in the more than 50 years the test has been administered.

The latest national assessment of students shows the continued negative effects of the pandemic on academic achievement. The National Assessment of Educational Progress released its long-term trend assessment Wednesday, showing the largest declines in the more than 50 years the test has been administered.

The math and reading assessment of the country’s 13-year-olds echoed recent declines in similar assessments of math, reading, history and civics at the 4th and 8th grade levels after the pandemic.

The long-term trend assessment is the last in the series of what the National Center for Education Statistics is calling pre- and post-pandemic assessments.

Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said the long-term trend assessment seeks to maintain a relatively stable assessment to compare across years.

“These findings show consecutive declines for long-term trend math and reading,” she said. “However, it is fair to say that the pandemic may have accelerated some of these declines in that these are the largest math declines we’ve ever seen in this data collection.”

Carr said reading scores dropped to levels not seen since the first assessment in 1971.

“While the previous declines were driven by lower performers, these new data show everyone is declining: lower, middle and higher performing students,” she said. “In fact, the lower performing students with our math assessment are dropping at a faster rate than their higher performing counterparts. In reading, the drop has been uniform across the distribution, but the 10th percentile students are now performing lower than their counterparts in 1971.”

The long-term trend assessment also asked students to respond to a survey questionnaire.

Responses showed the percentage of 13-year-olds who said they “never or hardly ever” read for fun has risen over the past decade; about 31 percent of 13-year-olds said they “never or hardly ever” read for fun in 2023, while 22 percent said they “never or hardly ever” read for fun in 2012.

In math, fewer students are taking algebra. While about 34 percent of 13-year-olds in 2012 said they were currently taking algebra, that figure has declined to 24 percent in 2023.

Unlike the reading and math scores reported last fall, which relied on a sample size of more than 200,000 students, the long-term trend assessment results are based on a nationally representative sample of approximately 8,700 students in each subject that does not allow for detailed, state-by-state analysis. This is a similar sample size to the U.S. history and civics assessment results released in May.

Latest National Assessment Reinforces Academic Decline Post-COVID-19

The latest national assessment of academic ability shows a continued decline in student achievement nationwide.

Eighth graders on average scored five points lower on a U.S. History assessment in 2022 than in 2018, and almost 10 points lower than in 2014, according to test results published by the U.S. Department of Education Wednesday.

Known as the nation’s report card, the National Assessment of Educational Proficiency continually assesses what students in the country know.

The results echo declines in reading and math published in the fall.

Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, presented the assessment results. She said history and civics results further highlight educational issues post-COVID-19.

“The assessment isn’t just about the facts, it’s not just about dates and times and people and all those great things that you and I both know that’s on the assessment,” she said. “It’s about taking that information and conducting some critical thinking and some of the evaluative work relevant to that information. And I think this is where we’re seeing some real problems in these results.”

Unlike the reading and math scores reported last fall, which relied on a sample size of more than 200,000 students, the U.S. history and civics scores are based on a much smaller sample size, about 16,000 students, which does not allow for detailed, state by state analysis.

Carr pointed towards the decline between 2014 and 2018 history assessments to indicate that something beyond COVID-19 is impacting student achievement in the subject.

“I think we can all agree that COVID had an impact in both sets of assessments, reading and math, history and civics, but what was going on in U.S. History in particular, started long before COVID,” she said.

Carr also dismissed reports that instructional time for U.S. history and civics had declined significantly, with 90 percent of students assessed reporting their teachers spent three to four hours a week on U.S. history.

“These subjects are not getting squeezed out I think in the way that people sometimes might imagine,” Carr said. “There’s been a bit of a decline, but nonetheless, a lot of instruction is going on in these areas.”

Education Unions Hold Community Focus Groups

Leaders of the state’s two education employee organizations are holding focus groups across the state.

After poor results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress released last month, the focus groups will offer input and ideas on the resources, supports, and other factors that will help improve student achievement.

The American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia and the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA) will host six focus groups across the state. They will begin Tuesday in Morgantown.

WVEA President Dale Lee said they want to hear from everyone involved in our school systems.

“We want to hear from the experts, we want to hear from the educators and the parents and the community about the things that we need to do to make improvements, to make changes in student achievement,” Lee said.

The organizations plan to present their data to the Department of Education and the legislature.

“We will have questions for each of the participants to answer and a survey at the end,” Lee said.

Registration for all focus groups begins at 5:30 p.m. The focus groups will begin at 6 p.m. at the following locations:

Morgantown: Plumbers and Pipefitters Union – Tuesday, Nov. 29
Wheeling: Patriot Point at Wheeling Park High School– Wednesday, Nov. 30
Charleston: Mary C. Snow Elementary – Monday, Dec. 5
Beckley: Woodrow Wilson High cafeteria – Thursday, Dec. 8
Martinsburg: Martinsburg Holiday Inn – Tuesday, Dec. 13
Virtual forum: Register at qrco.de/bdPM86 – Thursday, Dec. 15

State Scores Low On National Report Card

West Virginia’s math and reading scores are some of the lowest in the nation, but data released by the U.S. Department of Education Monday shows academic decline across the country.

West Virginia’s scores fell across the board on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the first nationwide measurement of learning since the pandemic.

The assessment, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, continually assesses what students in the United States know, particularly reading and math in the 4th and 8th grades.

In reading, the state’s average 4th grade score was 11 points below the national average, while the 8th grade average was 10 points below. These were the third and second lowest reading score averages in the nation, respectively.

In mathematics, West Virginia’s 4th grade scores were 9 points below the national average, while 8th grade scores were 13 points below, the country’s sixth and fourth lowest averages, respectively.

In all four assessments, West Virginia was at least six points below its own average on the 2019 NAEP.

Ebony Walton, a statistician and analyst with the National Center for Education Statistics, said one of the biggest factors for student outcomes during the pandemic was access to resources.

“What we saw was, particularly for lower performing students, they had a hard time accessing materials online, they had a hard time having a computer available to them at all times, they even had some difficulty having access to a teacher every day compared to their higher performing peers,” she said.

Walton stressed that declines in educational outcomes are not unique to West Virginia and will require a broad response.

“There’s so much that’s happening underneath that average that’s worth investigating,” she said. “I want to encourage everyone to keep moving forward so hopefully your communities can build and not just get to where they were before the pandemic but move beyond that.”

70% of our third-graders are behind in reading

The West Virginia Board of Education has approved the state’s participation in The Campaign for Grade Level Reading.

A recent West Virginia KIDS COUNT report found that seven in 10 children can’t read proficiently by the end of third grade. The report says three-fourths of those children will remain poor readers throughout high school, and one in six won’t graduate.

The Campaign for Grade Level Reading is a national network of groups emphasizes third-grade reading as a critical target. The program includes parents, educators and others who have an impact on literacy throughout a child’s life.

The state Department of Education says an advisory committee will coordinate West Virginia’s campaign efforts.