The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, has once again provided a snapshot of how the country’s fourth and eighth graders are doing in math and reading. Many, including EdTrust, rang alarm bells about the precipitous declines in NAEP scores during the pandemic — where scores dropped an alarming 5 points in fourth grade reading and 6 points in eighth grade math between 2019 and 2022. The NAEP results from 2023 showed that unfinished learning from the pandemic was still prevalent. Now, in 2024, there’s a lot of data to sift through, but the latest results tell a familiar story: our nation’s students need more support.

Nationally, scores remain below pre-pandemic levels, and in fact, scores in 4th grade reading and 8th grade math are now where they were 30 and 25 years ago, respectively.

At the same time, educational recovery and improvement are not just about how students are doing on average — they’re about ensuring that every student, regardless of their background or zip code, has access to high-quality educational opportunities. Compared to 2022:

• In 4th grade reading, scores for Black and Latino students stayed the same, while scores for students from low-income backgrounds fell by 2 points.
• In 4th grade, low-achieving students’ reading scores decreased — widening the achievement gaps between high-and low-achieving students.
• In 8th grade math, scores for Black students stayed the same, while scores for Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds fell by 3 points and 2 points, respectively.
• In 8th grade, high-achieving students’ math scores improved while low-achieving students’ scores decreased — widening the achievement gaps between those groups.

What Does That Mean for What Students Know and Can Do?

• Schools supported just 16% of Black 4th graders and 20% of Latino 4th graders to score at or above proficient in reading. Proficiency in reading means that students can determine the meaning of words from context in a text and integrate ideas across a text to identify the main idea.
• Schools provided the supports for 10% of Black 8th graders and 14% of Latino 8th graders to score at or above the proficient level. Proficiency in math means that students can use and create ratios to solve problems mathematically and convert between fractions, decimals and percent.

These results are disappointing, and it’s scary to imagine what might have been without the federal government’s sizable investment in schools during the pandemic. The little evidence we have about whether ESSER funding mattered says that it did. Two sets of researchers (Goldhaber & Falken and Dewey et al) determined that pandemic relief spending has contributed to at least some academic recovery for students. Aligned with these NAEP results, their findings show that recovery was more robust in math than reading.

How Did We Get Here?

As policymakers try to understand the root cause of these declines, they should take an honest look and ask when did the declines begin? Unfortunately, when leaders ask about the changes we’ve seen over time, too many focus on declines or improvements since 2019 — right before the pandemic. The truth is that these results have been years in the making.

When we try to understand the patterns we see in the NAEP data, we see that scores started declining in the early-to-mid 2010s. In 8th grade math, scores started declining for students after 2013. In 4th grade reading, the picture is less clear, but posted their highest scores around 2015, and scores have been declining since then. We see similar patterns for other groups of students.

Correlation is not causation. Yet at the same time, it’s striking that after years of slow but steady progress, scores began declining around the time that the federal government began relenting on the prescriptive federal oversight mandated by No Child Left Behind.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The 2024 NAEP results must be a call to action. To truly support our students — especially the students who have been long underserved by our education systems — we need to scale up what works, such as fair school funding, high-quality instructional time, investing in educator quality and diversity, and engaging families and communities.

The 2024 NAEP results are a stark reminder of the challenges we face. Now is not the time to abandon public schools; it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work to make them the safe, enriching, places our students need them to be. The future of our nation depends on it.