Education Policy, Business and Technology

A Disappointing National Report Card

Education Next: Once every two years, the world of K–12 education holds its collective breath as it awaits the latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card. The 2017 data, comprising math and reading scores for students in grades 4 and 8, arrived this April—and the news was not good. Scores ticked up in 8th-grade reading but otherwise remained flat, continuing a period of stagnation that’s now persisted for a decade.

The flatline since 2007 is especially disheartening after a decade and a half of steadily rising scores. Gains around the turn of the millennium were most impressive in math. By 2007, 4th graders performed the equivalent of two grade levels higher and 8th graders performed the equivalent of one grade level higher than their counterparts in 1996 had.

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