A new NAEP long-term trend report shows encouraging momentum for some younger students, even as reading and math results for 13-year-olds remain stuck—alongside a sharp drop in kids reading for pleasure. The report also arrives after major U.S. education cuts
On an assessment that tracks students’ progress over decades, the most striking detail isn’t just where scores sit—it’s where they move.
For the youngest students in the report, there’s a clear uptick. “It is just so encouraging,” one leader said during a press briefing. “Even though they’re performing below average. [they] are trending upward.” The report points to students’ age as one possible reason: they were 4 when the pandemic started in 2020. and they didn’t begin school until after most places had returned to full-time. in-person instruction. That timing, the report suggests, may have helped them avoid missing key early lessons in literacy and math.
Researchers and educators are watching that shift closely, because it offers a narrow window of hope that the nation can build back some of the slide that began long before COVID-19.
But the same report carries a warning that lands harder for older students.
Thirteen-year-olds are hurting.
Compared with the last assessment, students showed no significant improvement in reading or math. Reading scores remain below where they were at the start of the pandemic on average. and that includes Hispanic students. white students. female students. students who are economically disadvantaged and suburban students.
The report also shows a sobering reference point: reading scores from this test, on average, are not significantly different from performance on the first-ever administered test in 1971.
“The lack of progress in 13-year-olds raises huge questions and ought to serve as a catalyst for change,” Lesley Muldoon, the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, said during the press briefing. Her organization sets policy related to NAEP.
For these 13-year-old students. the pandemic wasn’t just a disruption—it was the backdrop for much of their elementary school experience. In 2020. they were in second or third grade. right in the window when literacy and math skills are supposed to lock into place. With school closures interrupting those critical years, the report suggests the stagnant performance may be one consequence.
At the same time, the report finds a second kind of loss—one that doesn’t show up only in test scores.
Fewer students are reading for pleasure—than ever.
Reading as a pastime is shrinking fast. In 1984, 35% of 13-year-old students reported reading for fun on a daily basis. In 2022 and 2025, only 14% said the same.
Nine-year-olds still show more daily reading than older students—37% said they read for fun every day—but that figure is also sharply down from decades earlier.
What’s happening to reading for pleasure tracks the test results in a way that feels personal. It’s not only whether students can answer questions—it’s whether reading lives as a habit in their days.
Math progress is also being erased for 13-year-olds.
The report describes long-running gains in math for this age group that had once looked like a bright thread in decades of data. From 1978 to 2012, the average math scores on the LTT for 13-year-olds improved by 21 points.
This time, the report shows those gains have largely been undone. The lowest-performing students now show no gains at all compared with the 1978 math test results.
“As a nation, we have to bring more focus to the middle school years,” Muldoon told reporters. “It’ll take a lot of collective work, but we’ve seen progress before, and it’s possible to see it again.”
The timing of this release also matters. This is the first NAEP long-term trend report released since the Trump administration began making cuts to the U.S. Education Department in 2025. Those cuts included laying off more than half the workers at the Institute of Education Sciences. the department arm charged with measuring student achievement and overseeing and processing the data that comes from the tests students take.
After those cuts, the department also canceled about a dozen national and state assessments of student progress through 2032—one of those being the next iteration of these tests. Since then, plans have been announced to restore some of those exams.
Still, students won’t see these questions again until 2033.
Taken together. the report tells a complicated story: younger students trend upward. but 13-year-olds stall—at the same time reading for pleasure declines and math gains fade. And the gap in future measurement means the next long view of long-term trends is delayed. pushing educators and policymakers to act with incomplete visibility for years to come.
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