The newest federal testing data shows student recovery has split in two: math has held mostly steady since 2024, while reading keeps slipping and twelfth-grade performance has fallen to historic lows. Per the National Center for Education Statistics, three releases in 2025 carried the story — the Nation's Report Card results on January 29, 2025, long-term trend scores on June 10, 2025, and grade-12 results on September 9, 2025.
Juvenile Pre & Post publishes information, not academic advice; families should read score trends alongside what their own district reports.
What did the January 2025 release find?
The January 29, 2025 release covered reading and math for fourth and eighth graders, tested in early 2024. Reading scores fell for both grades compared with 2022, continuing a decade-long slide, while math held roughly flat — better than many projections, but still well below pre-2020 levels. Per NCES, the lowest-performing students continued to lose ground faster than their peers, widening gaps that opened during remote schooling.
What did the long-term trend data add?
On June 10, 2025, NCES published long-term trend results for nine-year-olds, a separate assessment that has run since the 1970s. Nine-year-olds' scores remained below their pre-pandemic trend despite small improvements from 2022, per the release. The long-term series matters because it stretches back far enough to show the current reading level is among the lowest ever recorded for the age group.
What about older students?
The September 9, 2025 release was the bleakest: eighth-grade science scores declined, and twelfth-grade reading and math both fell to their lowest levels in the assessment's history, per NCES. High school seniors were in elementary school when the pandemic hit, and the data suggests the oldest students absorbed damage that has not begun to close.
What does this mean for families?
Three takeaways worth a parent's attention. Recovery money is gone — federal relief funds stopped flowing in 2024, so districts now must sustain tutoring and interventions from local budgets. Reading is the emergency — ask what a school's plan is for students reading below grade level, and how progress is measured. And high school is not too late — the grade-12 declines landed precisely where credit recovery and targeted math and literacy support still have time to work.
Which results should carry the most weight locally?
All three, but for different grades. Families with students in elementary school should watch the long-term trend series, because it shows whether the earliest learners are climbing back toward the pre-2020 line. Middle school families get the clearest signal from the January 2025 release, which covers grades four and eight directly. High school families should sit with the September 2025 grade-12 results: reading and math at their lowest recorded levels, per NCES, means a senior struggling this year is part of a national pattern, not a personal failure — and targeted help still moves outcomes in the final years of school.
For more context, read What the Data Says About Kindergarten Enrollment Recovery.
For more context, read Why Chronic Absenteeism Hasn't Dropped Back to Normal.
For more context, read How School Districts Are Spending Leftover Relief Funds.