Student Assessment

With the U.S. Department of Education’s cancellation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress for 17-year-olds, education researchers are losing one resource for evaluating post-high school readiness — though some say the test was already a missed opportunity since it hadn't been administered since 2012.

The department cited funding issues in its cancellation of the exam, which had been scheduled to take place this March through May.

Since the 1970s, NAEP has monitored student performance in reading and math for students ages 9, 13 and 17. These assessments — long heralded as The Nation's Report Card — measure students' educational progress over long periods to identify and monitor trends in academic performance.

The cancellation of the NAEP Long-Term Trend assessment for 17-year-olds came just days before the Trump administration abruptly placed Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics and as such, the public voice of NAEP, on paid leave.

Carr has worked for the Education Department and NCES for over 30 years through both Republican and Democratic administrations. President Joe Biden appointed her NCES commissioner in 2021, with a term to end in 2027.

The decision to drop the 2025 NAEP for 17-year-olds also follows another abrupt decision by the Education Department and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut about $881 million in multi-year education research contracts earlier this month. The Education Department had previously said NAEP would be excluded from those cuts.

Compounding gaps in data

“The cancellation of the Long-Term Trend assessment of 17-year-olds is not unprecedented,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications for the Education Department, in an email.

The assessment was supposed to be administered during the 2019-20 academic year, but COVID-19 canceled those plans.

Some experts questioned the value of another assessment for 17-year-olds since the last one was so long ago.

While longitudinal studies are an important tool for tracking inequity and potential disparities in students, the NAEP Long-Term Trend Age 17 assessment wasn’t able to do so because data hadn’t been collected as planned for more than a decade, according to Leigh McCallen, deputy executive director of research and evaluation at New York University Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools.

“There weren't any [recent] data points before this 2024 point, so in some ways it had already lost some of its value, because it hadn't been administered,” McCallen said.

McCallen added that she is more concerned about maintaining the two-year NAEP assessments for 9- and 13-year-olds, because their consistency over the years provides a random-sample temperature check.

According to the Education Department's Biedermann, these other longitudinal assessments are continuing as normal.

Cheri Fancsali, executive director at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, said data from this year's 17-year-olds would have provided a look at how students are rebounding from the pandemic. Now is a critical time to get the latest update on that level of information, she said.

Fancsali pointed out that the assessment is a vital tool for evaluating the effectiveness of educational policies and that dismantling these practices is a disservice to students and the public. She said she is concerned about the impact on vulnerable students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds and underresourced communities.

“Without an assessment like NAEP, inequities become effectively invisible in our education system and, therefore, impossible to address,” Fancsali said. 

While tests like the ACT or SAT are other indicators of post-high-school readiness at the national level, Fancsali said they offer a “skewed perspective,” because not every student takes them.

“The NAEP is the only standard assessment across states and districts, so it gives the ability to compare over time in a way that you can't with any other assessment at the local level,” Fancsali said.

Fancsali emphasized the importance for parents, educators and policymakers to advocate for the need for an assessment like NAEP for both accountability and transparency.

LIkewise, McCallen said that despite the lack of continuity in the assessment for 17-year-olds, its cancellation offers cause for concern.

“It represents the seriousness of what's going on,” McCallen said. “When you cancel these contracts, you really do lose a whole set of information and potential knowledge about students throughout this particular point of time.”

Math and reading scores declined or held steady for special education students on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress — for both 4th and 8th graders — when compared to NAEP results from 2022 and 2019.

The biggest decline came with 2024’s average score for 8th grade math, which dropped to 238, down from 242 in 2022 and 247 in 2019.

Looking at reading scores for 2024, 72% of 4th graders with disabilities, including those with a 504 plan, scored below basic — the lowest achievement category. For 8th graders, 66% of students with disabilities scored below basic. The other categories are: at or above basic, at or above proficient, and at advanced. 

On the 2024 math assessment, 53% of 4th graders and 74% of 8th graders with disabilities scored below basic.

Scores for all students dropped

While the decline in scores from pre- and post-COVID-19 performances are disappointing to many in the special education field, the scores from students with disabilities are similar to the average score declines seen for all students. 

Reading scores in 2024 for both 4th and 8th graders overall dropped 5 points from 2019 levels. For math, the average score decreased by 3 points for 4th graders and 8 points for 8th graders between 2019 and 2024. 

Education experts cite the lingering impacts of COVID-19 learning loss and high rates of chronic absenteeism as possible explanations for declining NAEP scores. A severe shortage of special educators could explain the low performance of students with disabilities, the experts say. 

For the 2024 NAEP cycle, students with disabilities comprised 13% to 15% of test takers. NAEP considers students with disabilities as those who may need specially designed instruction to meet their learning goals. A student with a disability will usually have an individualized education program.

About 90% of students with disabilities participated in the 4th and 8th grade NAEP math assessments for 2024, and about 65% did so with accommodations. For the reading assessments, 89% of students with disabilities participated, and 63% used accommodations. 

Andrew Kahn, associate director of expertise and strategic design at Understood, a nonprofit that offers resources for people with learning differences, said the key to seeing large-scale reading improvements is investments in early educational screening and targeted interventions with evidence-based learning approaches. 

"The takeaway message for states is that you must consistently invest in screening early readers and provide evidence-based interventions, particularly structured literacy," Kahn said in an email. "We know more today than ever before how to support readers. But states have to make a consistent investment in both finding and supporting these learners."

Where performances improved

While the 2024 national results for students with disabilities were disappointing, there were several state and local bright spots.

Alaska, for example, increased average reading scores for 4th graders with disabilities by 13 points from 2019 to 2024. Idaho saw a 17-point bump in 4th grade reading for students with disabilities from 2022 to 2024.

For 8th grade reading, the District of Columbia increased scores of students with disabilities by 10 points from 2019 to 2024. 

In math, Massachusetts recorded 12-point growth from 2022 to 2024 for 4th graders with disabilities. 

But for 8th grade math, no state increased scores for students with disabilities in 2024 over 2019 and 2022 results.

One state stands out for performance increases across subjects, student groups and grade levels. Louisiana increased 4th grade reading scores for all students between 2019 and 2024. The state also saw higher scores for students with disabilities in 4th grade reading and math from 2022 to 2024. 

The improvements in Louisiana can be credited to the state's efforts to boost coordination and collaboration between general and special education instruction and other programming, said Jenna Chiasson, deputy superintendent of the Louisiana Department of Education's office of teaching and learning, and Meredith Jordan, executive director of diverse learners. 

For example, there’s a consistent and mindful intention to have special education professionals participate in decision-making for instructional practices and policies at the local and state levels, they said.

"We will continue with this strategy that is proving results for us, and continuing to break down and really blurring the lines between general education and special education in our state," Jordan said.

Chiasson and Jordan also point to the state's Special Education Playbook that emphasizes special education students are general education students first — and that students with disabilities should be academically challenged and have access to high-quality instruction and supports. 

The state is continuing to ensure educators at the state, district and school levels have these best practices and also that parents are supported, they said. 

"Despite this incredible progress, we still don't have all students achieving mastery and performing at grade level in reading and math," Jordan said. "And so until we reach that point, we will always be dedicated and ensuring this consistent implementation of our instructional best practices across our state."

NAEP, which is administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what the nation's students know and can do in various subject areas.

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By Cognia

What if each assessment students completed were designed to speak to each other and provide actionable insights for educators? Curriculum-aligned, through-year assessments offer a balanced and coherent evaluation system. By aligning to the curriculum, they provide actionable data that allows teachers to target and adjust instruction to address learning gaps and celebrate student achievements. Students receive a connected learning experience with fair and comprehensible evaluations that build on their learning throughout the year.

To evaluate the effectiveness of these assessments, Cognia®—a nonprofit education improvement organization—participated in an initiative led by Education First to explore "a new generation of through-year assessment solutions." It involved multiple assessment organizations and states, tested various models of through-year assessments, and was rooted in one central question: Can curriculum-aligned interim assessments predict student performance on summative assessments?

They partnered with two districts—one in Maryland and one in Wisconsin— teaching the Illustrative Mathematics (IM) middle grades curriculum and using Cognia-aligned Interim Assessments. Professor Dr. Hong Jiao from the University of Maryland at College Park compared the outcomes of Cognia Interim Assessments with the results of Maryland’s and Wisconsin’s end-of-year assessments and examined the alignment between the standards assessed in Cognia Interim Assessments to the states’ summative assessments.

The comparative analysis revealed that Cognia’s Illustrative Mathematics Interim Assessments effectively determined students’ performance on their respective state summative assessments. Dr. Jiao indicated that the scores from Cognia “interim assessments predicted the state summative test scores with predictive power.” Moreover, she stated, “Adding demographic variables including Limited English Proficiency (LEP) status, gender, and race increased the predictive power slightly.”

Additionally, the analyses uncovered a strong alignment between the standards and domains covered in the interim and state summative assessments.  The content and skills tested in Cognia Interim Assessments closely matched those in the state summative tests, further reinforcing the reliability of these interim assessments as predictors of state test performance.

Participating states leveraged the findings as well. For example, an administrator in the Wisconsin district stated the study allowed them to “critically examine the standards we prioritized against those assessed on our state assessment. Ultimately, that led us to identify gaps we could address through curriculum and pacing decisions….”

This evidence suggests that curriculum-aligned interims have predictive power that can support student growth in state assessment performance. Learn more about Cognia Interim Assessments used in the study.

More than 100 school districts nationwide are performing at or above pre-pandemic levels in math and reading, according to the latest installment of the Education Recovery Scorecard.

Released Feb. 11, the report — produced by researchers at Stanford and Harvard universities — provides snapshots of what's working in these districts. But despite those success stories, its authors also found that economic and racial disparities worsened. 

For instance, the highest-income districts were four times more likely than the lowest-income districts to have recovered in both math and reading.

Even so, researchers found several cases where higher-poverty districts saw significant recovery in both subjects. For example, both Texas’ Ector County Independent School District and California’s Compton Unified School District were among those showing "exemplary progress." 

But often — and particularly in high-poverty districts — widespread chronic absenteeism is hindering academic recovery, the researchers said. Though the complete impact of ongoing attendance challenges remains unclear. 

The researchers also pointed to the impact of the federal government’s historic influx of pandemic aid, saying it prevented even larger learning losses in higher-poverty school districts. 

The Education Recovery Scorecard builds upon the recent data released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. While NAEP focuses on progress at the state level and in 26 large urban districts, the scorecard digs deeper into performance and trends in over 8,000 districts nationwide by aligning the NAEP results with annual statewide testing data.

Here are key high-level figures that stand out in the latest installment of the Education Recovery Scorecard.

Just six states — Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia — still require mandatory exit exams for high school graduation. Massachusetts and New York are the latest to move away from such a requirement and explore alternative options for student assessments. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 24 states had an exit exam or graduation test during the 2013-14 academic year. By 2017, only 14 did.

Exit exams as a requirement for graduation are outdated, said Harry Feder, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or Fair Test. 

The high-stakes nature of the exams can result in a narrow education and curriculum because of their influence on what gets taught, Feder said. As a result, things that aren't part of the graduation test may get less attention, and students may have fewer opportunities to pursue their own passions and strengths.

Feder added that exit exams can also have a disparate impact on marginalized student populations like English learners or students with disabilities.

Instead, Fair Test advocates for “authentic assessments” that evaluate students more holistically and realistically, reflecting how knowledge would be applied in the real world. This approach to assessment encourages student agency and critical thinking, according to Feder. 

For instance, in science, an authentic performance-based evaluation could ask students to develop a hypothesis and then design and conduct an experiment to prove or disprove it.

The New York State Education Department revealed in November that it will phase out its required statewide regents exam by the 2027-28 school year. In its place, the state has created a “portrait of a graduate” highlighting proficiency areas for students. 

That framework includes a broadening of how class credit is defined and a requirement that students have one career and technical education credit, which could include financial literacy. The state will also revamp transcripts to factor in standards proficiency, the portrait of a graduate, and new assessments “aligned to prioritized learning standards” by 2029-30. 

While Massachusetts residents voted in early November to remove the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System high school exam as a graduation requirement, the ballot referendum will not fully eliminate the tests. The MCAS exam is also used for assessing student progress and for federal accountability purposes, but passing it will no longer be required for a diploma. 

Instead, students will have to pass courses in English, math, science, technology and other areas determined by the state’s board of education. State Sen. Jason Lewis plans to file legislation requiring “an alternative, non-test-based, consistent and rigorous statewide graduation standard” based on MassCore, a series of recommended high school coursework requirements. 

In a column reacting to the MCAS decision, Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning nonprofit think tank, suggested convening a bipartisan group of governors and state education chiefs to determine the best way to move forward on setting high school “pathways” policies in lieu of exit exam requirements.

Among his suggestions for creating these new diploma requirements are: 

• Ensuring that students master core academic knowledge and skills by the end of 10th grade.
• Allowing 11th and 12th graders to choose from several college and career prep pathways.
• Addressing grade inflation.
• Making sure all postsecondary options set and enforce admissions standards.
• Closing funding gaps between CTE and traditional higher education.

Feder emphasized that moving away from exit exams is a state-level decision, and he encourages parents and schools pushing for alternatives to organize and advocate to key legislators.

“I think that we are transitioning nationally to a different notion of what it means to graduate high school,” Feder said. “There's a realization that school has to change, and for school to change, assessment has to change.”

Average math scores among U.S. 4th and 8th graders fell steeply between 2019 and 2023, falling 18 points for the younger group and an even sharper 27 points for the older students, data released Dec. 4 by the National Center for Education Statistics shows.

Internationally, this put the U.S. at 22nd of 63 education systems for 4th grade math and 20th of 45 education systems for 8th grade math, according to the latest results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. For science the U.S. ranked higher: 12th of 63 education systems for 4th grade and 12th of 45 education systems for 8th grade. 

Average U.S. math scores for both 4th and 8th graders reverted to performance levels of 1995, the first year the TIMSS assessment was administered, meaning “progress in prior years has been erased,” said NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr in a Dec. 3 press briefing. 

The 2023 TIMSS math results are consistent with student performance on other recent assessments, including the 2022 math scores from The Nation’s Report Card and the Program for International Student Assessment, Carr said. 

In 2022, the PISA math assessment saw U.S. students’ average math scores decline by 13 points prior to the pandemic and by 18 points from when that assessment was first administered in 2003. Also in 2022, the National Assessment of Educational Progress saw the largest drop in math scores on record.

Carr noted that average math scores on TIMSS were dropping even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Declines began in 2015, though they were more pronounced in 4th grade than in 8th grade, she said.

“I would be more concerned about this steeper decline that we’re seeing in the short term,” Carr said. “I don’t want to make light of the fact that we are back to where we were in 1995, but we haven’t declined past that point.”

TIMSS is coordinated by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. The global assessment, administered every four years, is managed in the U.S. by NCES. About 360,000 4th graders from 65 education systems and 300,000 8th graders from 47 education systems across the world participated in the 2023 TIMSS assessment.

NCES also highlighted that while American 4th graders didn't show a notable short-term drop in science on the exam, their average scores had dropped 9 points between 1995 and 2023.

Additionally, gender gaps reemerged in 2023 across both math and science scores, NCES said. Boys scored significantly higher for the first time since 2003, and they outperformed girls in science for the first time since 2015.

The New York State Department of Education plans to replace its graduation exam requirement with a new framework by the 2027-28 school year, according to Board of Regents officials who discussed the change at a meeting in November.

The exam will be replaced by a "portrait of a graduate,” a more holistic approach to assess graduation and workforce readiness. The shift will include broadening how class credit is defined, and requiring students to have one CTE credit, which could include financial literacy. 

The state ultimately plans to build on the change by requiring new transcripts that include both standards proficiency and the portrait of a graduate, as well as new assessments “aligned to prioritized learning standards,” by 2029-30.

The Board of Regents oversees the New York State Department of Education and sets education policies statewide, including for New York City Public Schools, the nation's largest school system. 

It anticipates that the shift away from its current graduation exam will require professional learning for educators, staffing resources, a shift in curriculum and additional resources, according to an update shared in November.

The shift is expected to cost around $11.5 million by the time the changes are fully implemented, or approximately 2029.

In recent years, a portrait of a graduate framework has become a commonplace alternative or supplement to standardized assessments. The model is meant to "identify the durable skills and competencies students need for success in this rapidly changing, complex world," and demonstrate students' grasp of them, according to Battelle for Kids, a national nonprofit on the forefront of developing the method.

The framework’s requirements are typically developed through engaging stakeholders within a school district, including local businesses, industries and higher education providers, according to Andy Tucker, director of policy at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. The organization advocates for SEL integration in the classroom. 

A 50-state analysis published in 2024 by CASEL and Civic, a bipartisan organization working to raise graduation rates, found that 20 states had graduate portraits.

Tucker, who has studied states' adoption of the method, suggests that states: 

• Gather input from multiple stakeholders, including from educators from a variety of rural and urban, small and large, and traditional and alternative schools.
• Engage the community, including representatives from postsecondary education providers and employers.
• Help schools and districts understand and implement what the portrait of a graduate is, as well as how and why it was developed.

U.S. 8th graders’ performance declined in both computer and information literacy and computational thinking between 2018 and 2023 on the International Computer and Information Literacy Study, a global assessment that gauges key computer and information literacy skills.

Average scores for U.S. students in both subjects dropped 37 points within the five-year period, according to data released Nov. 12 by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The U.S. average score for computer and information literacy (482) remained on par with the international average of 476, NCES said. For computational thinking, however, the U.S. average score of 461 was lower than the average ICILS score of 483. 

The ICILS assessment is designed to measure how “prepared students are for today’s digital learning and working environments,” NCES said in a statement. 

“Overall, the 2023 results in ICILS for the United States are disappointing,” said Dan McGrath, associate commissioner for assessments at NCES, during a recent press briefing. These results, he added, highlight “the need for further inquiry and concentrated efforts to address the computer and information literacy skills of our students.”

Specifically for computer and information literacy, ICILS examines 8th graders’ abilities to use computers for investigating, creating, participating and communicating at home, school, the workplace and society. 

NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr noted in a statement how many 8th graders are struggling with key digital literacy skills like identifying the credibility of news and information online.

“The study raises questions about the technological savvy of students who have been dubbed ‘digital natives,’” Carr said. “It might be assumed that this cohort of students, born when the iPhone was launched and raised in a world in which computers and smartphones are commonplace, would navigate an assessment like this one with ease, but these findings show that is not the case for many students. Students now use this technology for hours each day, but many students do not have the basic skills they need to be safe while using it.”

Some 35 education systems worldwide, including the U.S., participated in the 2023 ICILS assessments. Within that, 24 of those education systems, including the U.S., chose to participate in the computational thinking exam, which was optional.

ICILS’ computational thinking exam was designed to understand an individual’s ability to recognize real-world problems “that are appropriate for computational formulation” while also evaluating and creating algorithmic solutions to those problems, NCES said.

The findings come as a small, but growing number of states require media literacy in K-12 schools. As of May, only three states — Georgia, New Jersey and Delaware — required schools to include such instruction in their classrooms, according to nonprofit Media Literacy Now. Additionally, California, Florida and Ohio’s education agencies are required to create K-12 media literacy standards and frameworks.

Calls for such laws and curriculum requirements follow concerns for students who need the skills to spot misinformation online.

In January 2023, when New Jersey became the first in the nation to sign a statewide information literacy requirement for schools, Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement that the need for this curriculum comes at a time when “democracy remains under sustained attack through the proliferation of disinformation.”

On top of that, some artificial intelligence-generated content known as deepfakes has the potential to exacerbate misinformation online, experts warn. As technology progresses with the development of generative AI, media literacy advocates have also called on schools to help teach students how to spot deepfakes, including fake photos, video and audio developed with AI tools.