Full Breakdown
Stagnant Scores for U.S. Teens Amid Recovery for Younger Students, New Data Shows
6/11/2026, 6:02:40 AM
Core Findings: Divergent Trends for Ages 9 and 13
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) long-term assessment, administered in 2024-2025 to roughly 31,000 public and private students at ages nine and thirteen, shows nine-year-olds have returned to pre-pandemic reading and math levels, while thirteen-year-olds remain at scores comparable to the 1971 baseline, with no gain since 2023.
Data Summary and Benchmarks
Seventy-one percent of nine-year-olds met the reading benchmark and 84 % met the math benchmark, a modest rise over 2022. Among thirteen-year-olds, 58 % met reading and 70 % met math, unchanged from the prior year. Survey data show daily recreational reading fell to 14 % for teens and 37 % for nine-year-olds, down from 27 % and 53 % in 2012.
Impact and Why It Matters
The stagnant scores for thirteen-year-olds suggest gaps in literacy and computational foundations that could affect high-school readiness, college enrollment, and workforce participation. The decline in daily reading for fun coincides with increased cellphone and social-media use, raising concerns about student motivation and long-term academic engagement.
Official Responses from Education Leaders
Acting commissioner Matthew Soldner of the National Center for Education Statistics noted that scores peaked around 2012 and have been falling, a trend predating the pandemic. Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, warned schools have limited time to close the gap before these cohorts graduate. Former board member and eighth-grade math teacher Mark Miller expressed confidence that past progress can be regained through targeted policy.
Criticism and Measurement Gaps
Experts note that reforms emphasizing the 'science of reading' have concentrated resources on early grades, leaving middle-school curricula under-resourced and contributing to lack of improvement among teens, while researchers link the drop in recreational reading to rising cellphone use, suggesting digital distraction may undermine literacy development. Long-term assessment’s format has remained largely unchanged since the 1970s, unlike Nation’s Report Card, which updates skills to reflect evolving curricula.
Outlook and Policy Considerations
State-level discussions are already underway, exemplified by Oklahoma’s proposal for all-day cellphone restrictions in classrooms. The four-year interval of the NAEP long-term assessment provides only periodic snapshots of student performance, highlighting the importance of more frequent monitoring to track adolescent outcomes.
Verbatim Quotes
"The 13-year-olds who took this assessment last year are headed to high school now or are already enrolled," Lesley Muldoon, executive director, National Assessment Governing Board — "Schools won't have them much longer. We can't hesitate or wait if we're going to turn these trends around."
"We can clearly see that this isn't just a pandemic story." — Matthew Soldner, acting commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics
"Almost 50 years of progress has been eliminated." — Matthew Soldner, acting commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics
"We have made progress in the past, from the early '70s to 2012," Mark Miller, former board member and eighth-grade math teacher — "Can it be done again? Absolutely."
