‘These results are sobering’: US high-school seniors’ reading and math scores plummet

Surprising absolutely no one, our education system is shit.

The average reading and math scores of American high school seniors fell to their lowest levels in two decades in 2024, according to new national data released last week.

The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that, on average, reading scores for 12th graders were 10 points lower in 2024 than they were in 1992, when the test was first administered, and that math scores fell to their lowest levels since 2005, when the math assessment began.

The test, administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the US Department of Education, assessed roughly 19,300 12th-graders in math, 24,300 in reading and 23,000 eighth-graders in science between January and March of last year.

The report found that 35% of seniors “performed at or above” the NAEP’s “proficient” level in reading, and 22% were at or above that level in math.

It also stated that 45% of 12th graders scored below the NAEP’s “basic” level in math, marking a five percentage-point increase from 2019. In reading, 32% of students scored below the basic level, which was a two-point increase from 2019.

One-third of seniors met the standard for proficiency in reading and one-fifth in math, give or take a couple of percentage points, bringing me to dust off some cruft and quote George W. Bush:

"Is our children learning?"