Mass. leads in reading and math scores, but still lags pre-pandemic levels

Massachusetts schoolchildren outscored kids from the rest of the country in reading and math in 2024, according to an assessment known as "the nation's report card." But the state is still struggling to reach pre-pandemic levels.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, released Wednesday, shows the state slowed the free fall in scores seen in the 2022 assessment. That year, reading and math scores among fourth and eighth graders steeply declined soon after the pandemic.

“There is more work to do obviously, but where other states have continued to see a decline, in Massachusetts the good news is we have halted that decline,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press briefing Wednesday.

The national assessments are given every two years to students in every state and 26 urban school districts. More than 460,000 students around the country took the exams between January and March 2024. The scores provide an objective state-to-state comparison to track academic progress nationwide.

The new results also provide the first look at how students who were kindergarteners during the pandemic fared after an interrupted education.

Massachusetts was one of 14 states that improved in fourth grade math compared to two years prior. Scores, in fact, returned to pre-pandemic levels. On a scale of 500, students scored an average 246 points, versus 242 points in 2022.

But students still showed slight declines in fourth and eighth grade reading and eighth grade math since the last time around.

“The results in Massachusetts are very similar to what we see nationally in the sense that the only signs of recovery were in fourth grade math and scores were flat elsewhere,” Harvard Professor of Education Martin West said.

Education observers noted the increasing achievement gap among students.

“The gap between the highest and lowest performing students in the eighth grade has widened in both reading and math. In eighth grade math, this is the widest the gap has ever been,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics which oversees the exams.

In Massachusetts, 53% of eighth grade students from higher income households were considered proficient in math versus just 16% of low-income students.

Massachusetts Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler acknowledged this gap in student progress, saying at a briefing Wednesday the state is committed to devoting resources to helping underserved kids.

“While today’s results are not quite where we want them to be, we want to be number one for all students,” he said.

He flagged the state’s early literacy initiative and a $25 million investment in high-dosage tutoring. The idea is to offer early learning tutoring, screening assessments and in-person or virtual tutoring.

“We want to reach 10,000 students immediately through this initiative,” he said.

Jack Schneider, director of The Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said the recent results reflect the stark socioeconomic divide in the state and a need to support economically disadvantaged students.

“As educational research has repeatedly found, the strongest predictor of student standardized scores are out-of-school variables related to home and neighborhood environments,” he said.

“If we’re serious about equal opportunity in the commonwealth, we need to do more to support young people who are currently living at or below the poverty line,” he added.