Today, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released the results of the 2015 Mathematics and Reading Assessments for twelfth-grade students.  The news was not positive.

  • The average mathematics score for twelfth-grade students in 2015 was lower than 2013 by about 2 points.  It was not significantly lower than the first year of the new testing framework in 2005.
  • The average reading score for twelfth-grade students in 2015 was not significantly different from 2013 but was significantly lower than the first year of testing, 1992.

Among the more worrisome findings is that in “both subjects, the scores of the lower-performing students (at the 10th and 25th percentiles) decreased compared to the previous assessment in 2013.”  In addition, “the [mathematics] score of middle-performing students (at the 50th percentile) declined compared to 2013.”

NAEP tested a nationally representative sample of students.  As a result, there are no state-level results.