Results of the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were released this week (Jan. 29, 2025). Known as the Nation’s Report Card, NAEP is a nationwide assessment of reading and math administered to students in 4th and 8th grades across the United States every two years.
Scores indicate that students in South Dakota outperformed the national average in 8th grade reading and math, as well as in 4th grade math. Fourth grade reading scores in South Dakota were equal to the national average.
“These tests are a good measure of where we are compared to the rest of the nation,” said Secretary of Education Joe Graves. “In that regard, South Dakota students are doing well. But our work in education is never done. That’s one of the reasons we launched our statewide literacy initiative, which focuses on teaching reading using the proven concepts of the Science of Reading. In the long term, we believe this effort will help to boost test scores – but even more importantly – literacy among our next generation.”
Compared to South Dakota’s scores from 2022, math scores have remained the same for 8th graders, and they improved slightly for 4th graders. In reading, scores dropped for both 4th and 8th grade students. Other points of interest for 2024 NAEP scores include:
- The percentage of 4th grade students in South Dakota who performed at or above NAEP Basic in math is 79 percent; 42 percent of students performed at or above NAEP proficient.
- The percentage of 8th grade students in South Dakota who performed at or above NAEP Basic in math is 71 percent; 33 percent of 8th grade students performed at or above NAEP proficient.
- The percentage of 4th grade students who performed at or above NAEP Basic in reading is 60 percent; 28 percent of 4th grade students performed at or above NAEP proficient.
- The percentage of 8th grade students who performed at or above NAEP Basic in reading is 70 percent; 29 percent of 8th grade students performed at or above NAEP proficient.
Information below is from the Associated Press.
UNDATED (AP)- Most states have still not recovered from the massive test score losses of the pandemic era. Alabama is the only state that saw test scores significantly increase in fourth grade math since 2019, and Louisiana is the only state with a statistically significant increase for fourth grade reading. No states have improved since 2019 for eighth grade reading and math.
There were, however, some bright spots in math scores for younger students. Compared with 2022, the following states saw a statistically significant improvement in fourth grade math (state with the greatest increase listed first): Washington, D.C. (including both school district and charters), Delaware, New York, Alabama, Louisiana, West Virginia, Mississippi, Maryland, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Hawaii.
Compared with 2022, the following states saw a statistically significant decline (state with the greatest decline listed first):
— fourth grade math: Nebraska
— eighth grade math: Alaska, Nevada, Florida, Idaho
— fourth grade reading: Arizona, Nebraska, Florida, Vermont, South Dakota
— eighth grade reading: Florida, Vermont, Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Delaware, Nebraska
For urban districts, Atlanta saw a significant increase in both fourth grade reading and math scores. The following additional school districts increased their fourth grade math scores: District of Columbia Public Schools, Guildford County (NC), Baltimore City, New York City, Philadelphia, Houston, Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC), San Diego, Los Angeles, Detroit, Miami-Dade, Clark County (NV), Boston.
WHAT IS NAEP AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, is a standardized test usually given across the country every two years, as required by federal law since 1969. It’s known as the “Nation’s Report Card” because it gives a relatively objective snapshot of how much students know across every state and 26 large, urban districts.
NAEP differs from the state-level tests students take. Those vary from state to state and year to year, making it difficult to make apples-to-apples comparisons. Only NAEP allows journalists to compare each state across the entire country and to see national progress over time.
Over 460,000 students in fourth and eighth grade were randomly selected to take the NAEP test from January to March 2024. Scores are on a 0-500 scale and results are classified as basic, proficient, or advanced. Students, teachers and administrators also take a survey about topics such as absenteeism, confidence in math/reading (for students) and job satisfaction (for teachers).
NAEP is administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, which is part of the federal Department of Education.
WHERE CAN I SEE THE MAIN FINDINGS?
Findings are available at www.nationsreportcard.gov. Reporters can use the ‘quick data’ function at the bottom of the site to build a table and look at results for each state, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and 26 urban school districts. (Results for Washington are available both for District of Columbia Public Schools specifically and for the city as a whole, including charters.) They can also look at results by demographic subgroups such as race, gender, disability, etc. Reporters can also break out the results by the top-performing students (90th and 75th percentile), average (50th), and bottom-performing students (25th and 10th).
AP has also put the findings by state here. The states and school districts shaded in gradients of green or red had statistically significant increases or declines in their scores.
More information can be found on the NAEP website at https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard.
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