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This story has been updated to include reactions to NAEP scores. It also clarifies what increases and decreases are considered statistically significant.
Illinois fourth grade students’ math and reading scores stayed mostly stagnant on a test known as the “nation’s report card” compared to students who took the exam in previous years.
Now in fourth grade, these students would have been kindergarten age when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools and sent classrooms online. For many, first grade was also online or a mix of in-person and virtual.
During the pandemic, some parents opted to pull their children from school worrying that there wasn’t a benefit to virtual learning at a young age.
The latest round of test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as NAEP, released on Wednesday shows that Illinois students who missed school or went through the interruptions and struggles of remote learning, may still have gaps in their education from that time. However, Illinois eighth grade students — who would have been in fourth grade when the pandemic started — either held steady or outperformed their peers in 2022 in reading and math, but their scores lagged behind their peers who took the exam in 2019.
According to the new NAEP data, 38% of Illinois’ fourth graders were proficient in math and 30% were in reading, while 32% of the state’s eighth graders were proficient in math and 33% were in reading. Researchers said that the drops in proficiency for fourth graders in reading and math between 2024 and 2022 were not statistically significant.
When compared to other states, Illinois’ fourth grade proficiency rates were comparable to the national average in reading and math, but the state’s eighth graders surpassed the average in both subjects.
State Superintendent Tony Sanders said in a statement that NAEP’s latest results give families, students, and educators a “cause to celebrate.”
“This data is another example, like our state report card and national studies, that Illinois’ students are growing academically,” Sanders said in the statement.
NAEP scores for Chicago Public Schools, Illinois’ largest public school district, show that the district’s eighth graders had significantly higher scores in math and reading scores in 2024 when compared to their peers in 2022. Chicago’s fourth graders had slightly higher math scores than previous groups of students and slightly lower reading scores, but neither were statistically significant
In 2024, 21% of Chicago’s fourth grade students were proficient in math and 23% were in reading, but this was not a statistically significant difference from their 2022 proficiency rate. For the district’s eighth graders, 21% were proficient in math and 27% were proficient in reading, an increase from 2022.
According to a joint study from Stanford and Harvard universities, Chicago students’ reading scores on state exams rebounded faster than other districts across the country.
But in a statement, CPS officials focused on the strong performance of eighth grade students.
“This data is consistent with what we have previously seen - that students who remain in our system continue to make learning gains over time,” according to a statement from Chicago Public Schools. “The 8th grade reading score of CPS exceeded the average of large cities and narrowed the gap with the national public average to only 2 points. This marks the closest CPS has ever been to the national public average in 8th grade reading performance.”
The district statement also acknowledged that fourth graders were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic when compared to their older peers. The district said that they have added interventionist positions to support students, instructional coaches to assist educators, and organized tutoring programs.
CPS scores also show disparities between Black and Latino students when compared to their white and Asian American peers in reading and math in both grade levels. This has been a trend in NAEP scores over the past decade, predating the pandemic. However, Black and Latino students in eighth grade in 2024 reading and math were comparable to students who took the exam in eighth grade in 2022.
“COVID is exposing the historical and generational disparities that black children in this city have experienced for a very long time,” said Stacy Davis Gates, Chicago Teachers Union president when asked about the pandemic’s impact on students. “But I think COVID exposed all of the opportunity gaps, and we see them even in the recovery.”
The state’s Illinois Assessment of Readiness from spring 2024 paints a very different picture than NAEP’s 2024 scores. In fact, the IAR — which tests students between third and eighth grade in the spring — found that students’ reading scores were above 2019 scores.
But even on state standardized tests, Illinois and Chicago students’ performance on math tests lagged behind their counterparts’ math scores in pre-pandemic years.
In October, Sanders attributed the growth in IAR reading scores to the changes in how literacy is taught in Illinois schools. Since math scores have yet to grow in the same way as reading scores, Sanders said at the time the state’s report card was released that the board of education was looking into a statewide math and numeracy plan to increase proficiency.
Correction 1/29/2025: This story and its headlines have been corrected to clarify that the small declines in the NAEP scores of Illinois fourth graders in 2024 compared to those in 2022 and 2019 were not statistically significant and within the margin of error.
Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.
