A third of 8th graders and 40 percent of 4th graders did not meet a “basic” reading level.
U.S. students’ reading scores have plunged further on the test known as the nation’s report card, while math scores have stagnated for 8th graders and ticked up slightly only for 4th graders—demonstrating that the nation’s children are still struggling to rebound from devastating academic losses supercharged by the pandemic.
Reading scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress fell two points, on average, for both 4th and 8th graders, sustaining a steady decline in the subject that predates COVID-era disruptions.
The drop from the historic low scores of 2022 comes despite an unprecedented infusion of federal funding that flowed into schools, fueling tutoring and other interventions aimed at addressing learning loss.
In math, 8th grade scores were unchanged from 2022, the last time the test was given. Fourth graders’ scores rose two points, but remained below their performance in 2019.
The poor results overall obscure trends below the surface, including deepening divides between the highest- and lowest-performing students—a gap that has been growing since before the pandemic.
Kids in both grades who scored in the top 75th percentile in math gained ground between 2022 and 2024, while children who scored in the bottom 25th percentile fell further in 8th grade and made no progress in 4th. In reading, lower-scoring students saw bigger declines than their higher-scoring peers at both grade levels.
“The news is not good,” Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP, said in a call with reporters on Tuesday.