American kids’ reading skills just keep getting worse

The latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that test scores for reading continued to decline in 2024, with 40% of fourth graders and 33% of eighth graders scoring at a level considered as below basic proficiency — the greatest share in the federal exam’s three-decade history. Among all age groups, the gaps between high- and low-achieving students broadened.

Meanwhile, in mathematics, there was a slight uplift in fourth-grade scores from the year prior, to 76% of students at basic proficiency or higher, as eighth-grade scores stayed pretty level. While these results are slightly better than those seen for maths skills in the 1990s, they still lag significantly behind prepandemic levels.

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