New NAEP scores offer optimism for younger students but warning signs for teens

“Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S. The nation’s 9-year-olds, children who were on the cusp of kindergarten when COVID shut down in-person public education, are now performing nearly as well in reading and math as their counterparts did before the pandemic. But 13-year-olds, who experienced serious disruptions during their elementary years, are still struggling, with their performance in reading on a key national test essentially the same as children 50 years ago. These findings released Wednesday come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ long-term trend assessment test. Taken together, they suggest two very different outcomes, with one set of results offering hope that younger students now may have less academic baggage from the pandemic, and another set indicating that young high schoolers continue to suffer the effects of the pandemic. The results come amid worrying trends in NAEP and other test scores. The data shows a slow, consistent rise in scores for both reading and math for both ages starting around 2004 up until about 2012, followed by a downturn that’s bedeviled policymakers. The decline has given rise to debates and speculation about its cause. One result has been a backlash to technology , and especially screens , in schools. “The results raise important questions about what’s fueling these upward trends in the elementary years and why they’re not happening among the older students,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, the board that sets policy around NAEP testing. The long-term assessment is a paper and pencil test that’s been given to a representative sample of students since the 1970s to measure achievement over decades. It’s typically administered every four years. A sample of 15,000 9-year-olds and 16,400 13-year-olds took the test on paper and pencil in the 2024-25 school year. The performance by the third and fourth graders shows “growth can happen again,” said Matthew Soldner, acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, in a press release. But there’s a different story for the nation’s 13-year-olds, who are scoring just ahead of their 1970s counterparts in reading and just a little bit further ahead in math. That inertia may signal that learning struggles among those students — who were around 9 years old when the pandemic began — are more stubborn. And educators could be running out of time to intervene, warned Muldoon. “The 13-year-olds who took this assessment last year are headed to high school now, or are already enrolled,” she said during a news conference. “Schools won’t have them much longer.” A NAEP slide that goes back a decade Ebony Walton, a statistician with NCES, said the differences between the two age groups may come down to the fact that the older students’ early school years “really took the bulk of a lot of this disruption.” The younger students experienced little disruption in comparison. “These nine year olds who were in preschool at the outbreak of COVID 19, they were still able to get their fundamental skills taught in an in-class setting pretty much undisturbed,” she said. Students averaging the lowest scores have shown the most precipitous declines on assessments in recent years. But this year, in the younger cohort, they’ve shown the most growth in both reading and math. Older students in the lowest percentiles, however, did not significantly increase their average scores in reading or math. During a news conference this week, Soldner contrasted record high average scores from 2012 with far lower scores in every category from the latest test, particularly for 13-year-olds, where the average score between 2012 and 2025 has declined by 7 points in reading and 15 in math. The NAEP long-term trend tests are scored on a 0-500 scale. Changes in scores over time are not necessarily statistically significant, and average scale scores aren’t comparable between different subjects. Nine year-olds have made some significant progress over more than 50 years and in 15 separate long-term trend tests. Students with higher scores on the long-term test can typically take in more complex material and contextualize ideas less familiar to them. Students scoring on the lower end can follow brief instructions and demonstrate more basic skills. The younger students in every percentile, from those scoring the highest to those scoring the lowest, have increased their average scores from the 1970s in both reading and math, the data shows. For instance, the average math score for 9-year-olds in the the lowest percentile has risen from 171 in the 1970s to 186 in 2025. But struggling students also remain the furthest away from their 2012 highs. While 9-year-olds who scored the highest on the reading test averaged the same score in 2025 as they did in 2012, those who scored the lowest averaged 7 points behind their 2012 score. The new NAEP scores represent just the latest data illustrating a nosedive in math and reading scores over the past decade. The Education Scorecard, which relies on state test scores and released updated data in May, found the country’s students are in a “learning recession” with scores declining since 2013. Reading and math scores on the NAEP test, which students generally take every two years, have also persistently declined . Speculation over why scores have fallen recently has run the gamut. Some say smartphones and Chromebooks have wrought havoc in classrooms. Others point to diminished federal accountability laws as the culprit. Soldner pointed out that survey results from the test about students’ experience show that fewer than half — 37% — of nine-year-olds reported they read for fun almost every day, compared with 53% in 2012. A smaller proportion, 14% of 13-year-olds reported reading for fun almost every day, compared with 27% in 2012. Soldner cautioned that a decline in reading for pleasure didn’t necessarily cause a decline in math and reading scores, but added: “Students’ experiences are at the very least context for the scores that we observe.” More 9-year-olds than ever — 39% — also reported that they were not assigned homework the day before the test, compared with 24% in 2004. But researchers also noted that in 2025, students who indicated that they spent less than an hour on homework the day before scored higher than peers not assigned any homework at all and students who spent more than an hour on homework. Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org .

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