The results of the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, were released last week, and despite being above the curve compared to other Maryland counties, Anne Arundel County remains academically affected by the pandemic and/or outside factors.
Statewide, the Jan. 29 assessment results show Maryland’s lowest scores are in math. Though 70% of students scored at or above basic for proficiency in fourth grade math in 2024, 33 jurisdictions across the United States scored significantly higher than Maryland that year, according to online data on nationsreportcard.gov.
Maryland performed much better in reading compared to other jurisdictions in 2024; only a handful had average, basic and proficient scores that were significantly higher than the state.
But these recent scores contribute to a larger issue.
Children’s test scores in reading and math nationwide haven’t yet bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, according to the NAEP. The findings reveal that Maryland, among other states, saw declining proficiency rates over the past decade.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) is not an exception to this trend. A recent scorecard from AACPS shows “low performance” in math and English language arts, with significant discrepancies between racial groups; white students consistently score the highest.
Results measured by the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) State Assessments indicate that only a little over half of students in third through eighth grades in Anne Arundel County met or exceeded proficiency on the national/state standards in English Language Arts (ELA) in the 2023-24 school year.
Scores are even lower in math, with 34% of students in third through fifth grades and a quarter of students in sixth through eighth grades meeting or exceeding proficiency in MCAP math in 2023-24.
“I want to be very clear that we have a lot of work to do to improve these scores,” says Dr. Mark Bedell, the superintendent of AACPS, in a news release.
At the same time, Bedell says these MCAP scores represent an increase in proficiency for the second consecutive year, increasing in 13 out of 14 tested areas in ELA and math, according to data presented to the Maryland State Board of Education last fall.
All three levels of the ELA assessment—elementary, middle and high school—showed the percentage of AACPS students achieving proficiency surpassed the Maryland state average when compared to the previous year. At the elementary level, the AACPS proficiency rate of 52.3% was 5.6 percentage points better than the state average in ELA. The middle school rate of 52.2% was 4.6 percentage points above the state average.
AACPS’ strategic plan includes increasing the percentages of students meeting or exceeding proficiency on the national and state standards in ELA, math, science and social studies and reading on or above grade level by the end of second grade.
The NAEP test results come as U.S. schools have seen pandemic school closures, a youth mental health crisis and elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, according to the Associated Press.
Given every two years to a sample of children in the U.S., the NAEP is considered one of the best indicators of the academic progress of the American school system. The most recent test was given in early 2024 to fourth and eighth graders in every state, testing math and reading.
“We are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic,” Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, tells the Associated Press.
The reading test included literary and informational texts to evaluate students’ reading comprehension skills, according to NAEP.
Last year, the average reading score for the nation for both fourth and eighth grades was two percentage points lower compared to 2022 and five percentage points lower than 2019, according to NAEP data.
Thirty-one percent of fourth-grade students performed at or above NAEP Proficient, or “solid academic performance” for each assessment, meaning that students have proficient subject-matter knowledge, application of this knowledge to real-world situations and analytical skills. Thirty percent of eighth grade students performed at or above NAEP Proficient, lower compared to 2019.
On average, fourth grade students performed slightly better in math—the average score was two percentage points higher than in 2022 but still lower compared to the pre-pandemic score.
The average 2024 score at eighth grade wasn’t significantly different from 2022, but eight percentage points lower compared to 2019, according to NAEP.
To learn more about the NAEP and explore tools to better understand its data, visit nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/data.
