NAEP Long-Term Trend Shows Gains for 9-Year-Olds, Stagnant Scores for 13-Year-Olds

Average reading and math scores for 9-year-olds rose 4 points since 2022 on the Long-Term Trend edition of the National Assessment of Educational Progress released on or before June 11, 2026. Reading scores for this age group returned to pre-COVID levels. The largest gains occurred among the lowest-performing students.

These students were still in preschool when the pandemic began. The pattern reverses a trend from the 2010s in which gains accrued mainly to higher-performing students.

Scores for 13-year-olds showed no comparable recovery. Average reading scores remained statistically unchanged from 1971 levels. Math scores stood 15 points below the 2012 peak. In 2012, 85 percent of 13-year-old test-takers scored at or above the 250-point math threshold; in 2026 the share fell to 70 percent.

Researchers at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Stanford documented a learning recession that started in 2013, before the pandemic. Stanford economist Eric Hanushek and colleagues calculated that achievement declines over the past dozen years equate to an 8 percent lifetime income tax surcharge on today’s students.

Absenteeism rose sharply. Sixty-one percent of 13-year-olds reported missing at least one school day per month in 2026, compared with 44 percent in 2012. Absenteeism accounted for nearly half of the 3-point drop in fourth-grade reading between 2019 and 2022.

Reading for pleasure declined across both age groups. Fourteen percent of 13-year-olds and 37 percent of 9-year-olds said they read for fun almost every day in 2026. Forty years earlier the figures were 35 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

RealClearPolitics reported the results from the Long-Term Trend NAEP, which has used a consistent format to track 9- and 13-year-old achievement since the early 1970s.