Vermont fourth and eighth graders saw their math and English scores drop this year on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a collection of tests often referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card.”
Vermont students scored above the national average on all tests except for fourth grade math. But largely mirroring national trends, performance in Vermont declined between 2017 and 2019 in both subjects and both grades.
“This year’s NAEP scores paint a concerning picture for Vermont,” Vermont Education Secretary Dan French said in a statement. “Many of these metrics have been declining for years now, and while Vermont students are still performing above the national average, we clearly have more to do as a state.”
NAEP tests are administered by the federal government to a nationally representative sample of students in all 50 states and several major urban districts. This year, nearly 600,000 students took the tests on tablets between January and March. The results are reported on a zero to 500-point scale.
Between 2017 and 2019, Vermont students lost the most ground in reading, according to NAEP results. Fourth grade student scores fell by an average of 4 points, and eighth-grade scores fell an average of 5 points. This, in particular, reflected a national pattern. Across the U.S., middle school students saw their reading scores drop an average of 3 points, a trend that appears to be driven by a steadily growing gulf between how well high- and low-performing students do.
Scores fell in math as well, but not by much. The average score for fourth graders fell by 2 points between 2017 and 2019, and by just one point for eighth graders.
Results also varied for different subgroups of students, according to a breakdown released by the Vermont Agency of Education. Historically marginalized students, including non-white, low-income, and students with disabilities consistently scored more poorly than white, affluent, and non-disabled students.
But in several instances, students from historically marginalized groups lost less ground than their peers. Fourth graders of color, for example, actually improved their reading scores by five points between 2017 and 2019, while white fourth graders saw their reading scores fall by 6 points.
Because only state-level results are available, education officials cautioned against using them to draw any conclusions about what’s driving scores.
“While the NAEP results are a useful barometer – they help us understand what’s happening – we shouldn’t use the data to leap to conclusions about why we see the trends that we do,” said Wendy Geller, director of the Data Management and Analysis Division at the agency.
Bill Mathis, the managing director at the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, echoed Geller.
“It’s a nice general indicator of how well we’re doing. But it’s a narrow one. And it doesn’t give diagnostics,” said Mathis, who sits on the Vermont State Board of Education (although he was not speaking for the board).
