Utah’s fourth and eighth graders are outpacing most of the country in math and reading, according to new national data released Wednesday.
However, Utah’s scores have remained relatively unchanged since 2022, when the National Assessment of Educational Progress — also known as the Nation’s Report Card — was last administered.
Every two years, the national assessment is provided to a sample of students in fourth and eighth grade, allowing for comparisons across states. It is separate from Utah’s standardized exams.
The latest results also indicate that while Utah students have made some progress, proficiency rates in both grades and subjects have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
State auditors already flagged that lack of progress as “problematic” after a December report from the Legislative Auditor General found Utah students across the board are not improving.
“In other words, students who are proficient will likely remain proficient the following year, and students who are not proficient will likely remain not proficient,” the audit said.
Utah sees declines in reading comprehension
Utah has made slight gains in math proficiency for both fourth and eighth grades since 2022, the national assessment results indicate.
Fourth graders saw the most improvement, with math proficiency rising from 32% in 2022 to 35% in 2024. Eighth-grade math proficiency separately increased by 1%, from 26% in 2022 to 27% last year.
However, eighth-grade reading proficiency slid backward, dropping from 32% to 29%. Fourth graders also saw a slight dip, with proficiency falling from 27% to 26%.
That mirrors a national trend in declining reading comprehension.
“While Utah continues to perform well overall, with only three states or jurisdictions outperforming Utah, the decline in eighth-grade reading highlights the challenges schools face in reversing downward trends in literacy proficiency,” Utah State Board of Education officials said in a news release Wednesday.
USBE said it is working to identify the causes behind the reading score declines and is “expanding resources for reading programs and fostering innovative approaches to literacy education.”
Performance gaps in Utah remain wide
Achievement gaps between Utah’s underperforming student groups and their peers have remained relatively unchanged since 2022, according to NAEP results.
Across both grades and subjects, Hispanic students had average scores between 20-30 points lower than their white peers, though not significantly different from two years ago.
The gap between economically disadvantaged students and non-economically disadvantaged students also remains wide, with these students scoring on average between 22-29 points lower than their peers.
The NAEP did not provide data on Utah’s Black students, noting that “reporting standards were not met.“
Reading comprehension drop most ‘notable challenge’ nationally
Overall, The Nation’s Report Card brings good news for math but less encouraging news for reading across the U.S.
Nationally, fourth-grade math scores improved between 2022 and 2024, a two-point gain that follows a five-point decline from 2019 to 2022, according to a news release. Eighth-grade scores in math remained stagnant.
Officials from The National Center for Education Statistics said the most “notable challenge” in the 2024 data is reading comprehension.
Those scores dropped in both fourth and eighth grades since 2022, continuing declines first reported before the pandemic.
In 2024, the percentage of eighth-graders reading below NAEP Basic, or below proficiency, was the largest in the assessment’s history, according to a news release, and the percentage of fourth-graders scoring not proficient was the largest in two decades. NAEP tests were first administered in 1969.
“NAEP has reported declines in reading achievement consistently since 2019, and the continued declines since the pandemic suggest we’re facing complex challenges that cannot be fully explained by the impact of COVID-19,” said NCES Associate Commissioner Daniel McGrath in a Wednesday news release.
