New NAEP Results: Is This What Accountability Looks Like

When states enact school choice policies that allow funding to follow students to educational options beyond their assigned district school, opponents often claim there is no accountability outside the public system. But the shockingly poor results shown in the latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the Nation's Report Card, don't really scream accountability.

To be clear, I don't think NAEP scores-or any specific testing results-are the ultimate measure of how students are doing. But they are a measure, and they can show important trends over time. In this case, those trends are troubling.

• The 2024 grade 8 science score was significantly lower than 2019 and not measurably different than in 2009.
• The 2024 grade 12 mathematics score was the lowest since the current assessment began in 2005.
• The 2024 grade 12 reading score was lower than when the test began in 1992.

That last one was particularly striking to me because I was a senior in high school that year. That was a long time ago! How is it possible that today's twelfth graders are faring worse in reading than we were back then despite the massive increase in spending? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, after adjusting for inflation, spending per pupil was just below $12,000 in 1992 compared to $17,500 in 2020-21 (the most recent comparison data)-a 49 percent increase.

Digging a bit deeper into twelfth-grade reading results, we see only the highest-performing students avoided a decline from 2019, while the lower performers continued the pre-pandemic slide. Sixty-five percent of twelfth graders scored below NAEP Proficient, and 32 percent scored below NAEP Basic (up 2 points from 2019 and 12 points from 1992). Based on previous NAEP research, these results indicate only around 35 percent of twelfth graders were academically prepared for college in reading in 2024, down from 37 percent in 2019.

Turning to twelfth-grade math, the results show only 22 percent solved math problems at a level deemed at or above proficiency in 2024. Meanwhile, 45 percent performed below the test's most basic achievement level. It's worth noting that the achievement gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students widened once more, reaching a new high in 2024. On the college readiness front, an estimated 33 percent of twelfth graders were at that level in mathematics in 2024, down from 37 percent in 2019.

Science scores for eighth graders also declined significantly, with average scores falling for all students. The drop was particularly pronounced for lower-performing students, with scores coming in lower than in all previous assessment years-resulting in a historically high gap between the lowest- and highest-performing students. "Layered on top of the eighth-grade NAEP scores we released earlier this year for mathematics and reading, the new science data clearly underscore ongoing struggles for students who are embarking on their high school careers," noted NCES Acting Commissioner Matthew Soldner.

There's no way to spin these results as anything but bad. There are likely many reasons for the poor outcomes, including disruptions during COVID-19, decreased emphasis on testing in recent years, overall student disengagement with school, and maybe even students not putting much effort into the tests since they realize the results don't really impact them.

Whatever the causes behind these results, they indicate the oft-cited "accountability" in public schools is largely a myth. Rather than locking students into a school system that isn't working for them, states should continue to advance educational freedom programs that enable students to pursue varied learning paths based on their needs and interests. The accountability derived from parental choice-and the threat of lost funding when parents choose a different option-will always be stronger than attempted bureaucratic accountability through test scores or other metrics.

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