WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2026
There's no single way to tell: How well are America's children doing? Our 9-year-old students, let's say.
There's no easy way to answer such a worthwhile question. That said, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tested a national sample of such kids last year.
How strong are the skills of These Kids Today? Results may see to differ depending on where you start your comparisons, if you choose to approach things that way.
For today, we'll go back a good long ways. The Long Term Trend version of the NAEP goes back a bit farther than we will, but this is how last year's numbers look as compared to the numbers from 1980 (reading) and 1982 (math):
Average scores, 9-year-old students
Reading, Long Term Trend NAEP
1980 / 2025
All students: 215.04 / 218.39
Black kids: 189.35 / 204.62
Hispanic kids: 190.22 / 207.59
White kids: 221.34 / 224.79
Asian kids: 224.56 / 242.48
Average scores, 9-year-old students
Math, Long Term Trend NAEP
1982 / 2025
All students: 218.98 / 237.67
Black kids: 194.94 / 220.19
Hispanic kids: 204.00 / 226.24
White kids: 223.95 / 245.82
Asian kids: 241.60 / 260.11
Now for the rest of the story:
Average scores have risen since those early years, especially in math. For the record, we aren't cherry-picking those starting points. Math and reading were tested in separate years back in those earlier days.
That said, how large are the academic gains suggested by those numbers? On the Main NAEP, it's often said, as a very rough rule of thumb, that 10-11 points on the NAEP scale is roughly equivalent to one academic year.
You can start applying that (very rough) rule of thumb to the data shown above. At your favorite major news sites, you'll see no one try to inform you in more detail about the meaning of those statistical gains. In fact, no one cares about any of this, and no one ever has or ever will.
Based upon last year's numbers, 9-year-old students have come a long way since the 1980 / 1982 testing. The Main NAEP shows similar progress when we go back that many years.
To review the difference between the two different versions of the NAEP, you can just click here.
For access to all data from the Long Term Trend NAEP, you can start by clicking this. From there, you're on your own
Asian kids are out scoring us? Abolish birthright citizenship.
ReplyDeleteNeptune was discovered in perturbation of Uranus.
DeleteExpecting constant growth in test scores is silly.
ReplyDeleteAs a society we are not advancing in any notable way, in fact we seem to be repeating earlier cycles of growing inequality engendering growing authoritarianism, and we seem to be reacting to those circumstances in a similar way to how previous generations responded.
Humans are humans.
It is good to monitor the metric of test scores, but they do not reveal much.
Test scores do not seem to have any significant correlation with the health and happiness of a society, certainly much less so than characteristics like wealth inequality and parenting skills.