Nine-year-olds are recovering academic ground lost during the pandemic, with reading scores now statistically on par with pre-COVID levels and a growing share of students demonstrating foundational math and literacy skills.
The findings come from the 2025 National Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term Trend Assessment, released by the National Center for Education Statistics. The assessment tracks reading and mathematics performance among 9- and 13-year-olds and provides a historical record dating back to the 1970s.
The gains were most pronounced among lower-performing 9-year-olds. The share of students reaching basic reading proficiency climbed to 71% in 2025, up from 67% in 2022. In mathematics, 84% reached that foundational benchmark, compared to 80% three years earlier.
Recovery, however, remains uneven. Math scores for 9-year-olds and both subjects for 13-year-olds are still below where they stood before the pandemic in 2020. For older students, scores showed no statistically significant movement from 2023, suggesting the rebound seen in younger grades has not yet extended up the age ladder.
National Center for Education Statistics Acting Commissioner Matthew Soldner noted that students reached some of their highest math scores in 2012, framing the current gains as proof that stronger performance is achievable rather than a ceiling already reached.
“We know that higher performance is possible, and the gains we’re seeing for 9-year-olds show us that growth can happen again,” Soldner said in a statement.
One persistent concern glares outside test scores. Only about one in three 9-year-olds reported reading for fun nearly every day in 2025, down from more than half who said the same in 1984. Among 13-year-olds, that figure has fallen to roughly one in seven.
What leaders are doing differently
Last month,District 91心頭istrationhighlighted five school districts featured in the Education Scorecard report, which identifies 108 “districts on the rise” for significantly outpacing similarly-sized districts in reading and math.
In Maryland’s Baltimore City Public Schools, for instance, CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises launched several initiatives to improve test scores in both subjects. The district deployed high-dosage math tutoring through a university partnership, built 26 literacy-intensive learning sites with on-site coaches and converted summer school into a paid extended learning season for high schoolers.
Over nine years, the district has outpaced Marylands statewide ELA growth and logged three consecutive years of math gains matching the state average.
Idaho’s Kuna Joint School District’s math and literacy efforts date back to 2009 when it required science of reading training for all staff and later extended that training to principals, district leaders and board members.
Today, the district runs weekly teacher professional learning communities, monthly principal-led Guiding Coalition meetings and a principal evaluation system explicitly aligned to research-based instructional leadership. The result is a culture of data use that survived a superintendent transition and continues to drive decisions at every level of the organization.
Explore more “districts on the rise” by reading the report .
More from 91心頭: Applications open for 91心頭’s National Awards of Distinction program
District 91心頭istrationuses artificial intelligence to support research and drafting, with all content reviewed and verified by the author.
