NAEP Scores Show Immediate Need For Aggressive School Options
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been providing a national standardized assessment of learning since 1969. Nicknamed “the Nation’s Report Card“, NAEP scores are widely and deeply used, not only to assess learning trends, but also to analyze and adjust education practice and policy. The data are rich and complex, but the gist is that reading and math are tested at fourth and eighth grades, with the results being broken down into several crosstabs such as demography, race, income, et cetera.
The 2024 scores have come out and they’re. . .not good. I want to begin with some national top lines before digging into Virginia’s results; from there, I’ll briefly address what all of this means for our children.
Let’s start with math. Per the results, 61% of fourth graders lack proficiency in math. Even worse, 24% of those fourth graders are below even basic working knowledge of math.
Eighth graders, regrettably, fare even worse. 72% are below proficiency, with a staggering 29% below basic math skills. Just under a third of our eighth graders don’t possess basic math knowledge.
Reading scores cause similar alarm. 69% of fourth graders don’t hit reading proficiency, with 40%–40%–of our fourth graders being below basic reading comprehension.
This is unconscionable. As is eighth grade, when it comes to reading. 70% of our eighth graders are below reading proficiency for their grade level, with 33% being below basic comprehension. Again, a third of our eighth graders simply can’t read at a basic level.
It’s not hard to map out the trajectories of these poor children who have been completely failed by the system. Perhaps things are better in the Old Dominion, though? Well, let’s see.
NAEP scores break out the data in all sorts of ways, including by state, so we can get an idea of how Virginia is doing. And, again, it’s not good. Readers can play around with the site through the above links and chop and dice in myriad ways, but let’s just look at Virginia’s fourth grade mathematics and reading scores, since fourth grade is such a key milestone in a child’s education.
In math, 24% of Virginia’s children in public schools are below basic ability. And additional 36% can reach basic levels, but are still below proficiency, meaning that a total of 60% of our children in public schools are below proficiency in math.
And, somehow, reading is even worse. 42%–42%–of our precious children siloed in Virginia’s public schools are beneath basic reading level in fourth grade. Another 28% are have basic skills, but lack proficiency. Dear reader, 70% of fourth graders in Virginia’s public schools are below reading proficiency.
Seventy percent.
This is a tectonic crisis.
So, surely more money is the answer, right? We are reliably told that our public schools aren’t “fully funded”, and if only that were the case, these problems would cease to exist. Unfortunately, just the opposite is true. Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab has done the hard work of tracking education spending against education outcomes. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, from 2013 through 2024, education spending has skyrocketed while outcomes have plummeted. Education spending is up 47%, even as our children are generationally crippled by failing public systems. Reforms are, as always, in the works, but while legislation works its way through the sausage-making year after year after year, our children are sent out into the world illiterate in the basics, just as they are in other places.
At YFPP, we will keep working the research and legislative angles, but we’re taking aggressive action to get children out of public education and into learning environments where academics and virtue are the hallmarks of schooling. Stay tuned.