While Pennsylvania students remain slightly above the national average for reading and math scores, the latest results of a test known as the nation’s report card underline the ongoing aftershocks of pandemic learning disruptions.
Given every two years to a sample of America’s children, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is considered one of the best gauges of the academic progress of the U.S. school system. The most recent exam was administered in early 2024 in every state, testing fourth and eighth-grade students on math and reading.
The Pennsylvania fourth graders tested — kindergartners at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — scored lower in both reading and math than fourth graders tested in 2019. Student scores across nearly all racial groups continued to demonstrate struggles to recover student learning, although white student scores still outpaced that of their Black peers.
The findings reflect the myriad challenges that have upended education, from pandemic school closures to a youth mental health crisis and high rates of chronic absenteeism. The national exam results also show growing inequality: While the highest-performing students have started to regain lost ground, lower-performing students are falling further behind.
“The news is not good,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees the assessment. “We are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic.”
Pennsylvania students did show some year-over-year gains: The share of students considered “proficient” or “advanced” in math increased among both fourth and eighth graders between 2022 and 2024. The average score for fourth graders held steady, while scores for eighth graders ticked up 2 points on a scale of 500.
And while the share of fourth graders reading proficiently decreased by 1%, eighth-grade reading scores remained stable. The average math score for Pennsylvania eighth graders was higher than those of 25 other states, and the average reading score sat ahead of 14 other states.
But the divide between higher and lower-performing students was also most pronounced in eighth-grade math: While the top 10% of students nationally saw their scores increase by 3 points, the lowest 10% decreased by 6 points.
“We are deeply concerned about our low-performing students,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policies for the exam. “For a decade, these students have been on the decline. They need our urgent attention and our best effort.”
The latest setbacks follow a historic backslide in 2022. In that year's exam, student achievement fell across both subjects and grade levels, in some cases by unprecedented levels.
But Carr said poor results can no longer be blamed solely on the pandemic, warning that the nation's education system faces “complex challenges.”
A survey done alongside the exam found in 2022 that fewer young students were reading for enjoyment, which is linked to lower reading scores. And new survey results found that students who are often absent from class — a persistent problem nationwide — are struggling the most.
“The data are clear,” Carr said. “Students who don't come to school are not improving."
The results provide fresh fuel for a national debate over the impact of pandemic school closures, though they're unlikely to add clarity. Some studies have found that longer closures led to bigger academic setbacks. Those slower to reopen were often in urban and Democratic-led areas, while more rural and Republican-led areas were quicker.
The new results don't show a “direct link” on the topic, Carr said, though she said students clearly do better when they're in school.
Among the states that saw reading scores fall in 2024 are Florida and Arizona, which were among the first to return to the classroom. Meanwhile, some big school systems that had longer closures made strides in fourth-grade math, including Los Angeles and New York City.
In Philadelphia, meanwhile, fourth-grade math scores in 2024 were roughly the same as those in 2019. The district’s average scores in fourth-grade reading and math sat roughly 20 points below that of the state average, with similar — albeit slightly smaller — gaps between Black and white students.
While district-level data for NAEP scores is only available for students in Philadelphia and other select urban districts, the results largely mirror continued racial disparities in reading and math proficiency among elementary students at Pittsburgh Public Schools.
The district is working to improve outcomes for all students by differentiating student instruction and increasing professional development time for teachers, in addition to regular progress monitoring.
