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New York City’s fourth graders are showing signs of academic recovery in math, according to new data released Wednesday from a long-running exam known as the “nation’s report card.”
The latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, offer some relief after the city’s fourth graders experienced a crushing drop in math scores just two years prior — raising serious concerns about lingering effects from the pandemic.
Drilling down into the data of the 2024 scores, however, reveals that not all fourth graders in the five boroughs are recovering at the same rate and that little progress has been made to bridge stubborn performance gaps between student groups.
Overall, just 33% of the city’s fourth graders scored proficient in math last year, compared with 23% in 2022 and 32% in 2019. (NAEP exams do not always align with state learning standards, and the exam’s standard for proficiency exceeds most states’ expectations for grade-level achievement, according to researchers.)
As a whole, New York was one of 15 states to see their fourth grade math scores rise last year. One state saw scores fall and 37 saw no significant change, according to the NAEP data.
Still, New York City’s fourth graders scored below state and national averages. National proficiency rates hit 39% and the state’s rate was 37%.
Education observers have been eagerly anticipating results from last year’s test, hoping for some signs of how well academic recovery has been going since the city devoted hundreds of millions of dollars toward a slew of programs in recent years — an effort propped up by billions in federal aid that have since dried up.
The city’s scores on the other exams — fourth and eighth grade reading, and eighth grade math — remained fairly steady from 2022, which in turn did not change in statistically significant ways from 2019.
Of the city’s eighth graders, 23% scored proficient in math and 29% scored proficient in reading — compared to 25% and 27% in 2022, respectively. Meanwhile, 28% of the city’s fourth graders scored proficient in reading, up from 26% on the prior exam.
“It’s absolutely cause for encouragement,” said Ray Hart, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of 78 of the nation’s largest urban public school systems. “When you compare New York City to not only the state, but to other districts around the country, the fact that they’ve been able to hold steady is quite remarkable, given the challenges that were faced during the pandemic.”
Chyann Tull, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department, said the latest NAEP results showing a return to pre-pandemic levels “underscore the resilience of New York City’s students and educators.”
“This stability reflects the extraordinary efforts of our schools to support learning recovery,” she said in a statement. “While there is still so much to be done, we remain committed to building on this foundation and fostering continued growth citywide.”
Still, Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and an expert in testing, cautioned against drawing immediate conclusions from the NAEP data. With years between exams and distinct cohorts of students, many factors can contribute to fluctuations in results, he said.
Pallas, who spoke to Chalkbeat generally about NAEP before results were released, noted that the exams offer one piece of evidence that can help illustrate a more holistic picture of student performance when combined with other metrics, like annual state reading and math assessments.
“NAEP is a broad, general purpose indicator,” he said. “Inevitably, I think, there’s a tendency to want to look at changes over time and use that as a referendum on policies and practices — but lots of things are changing at the same time.”
Fourth grade math breakdown: Top scorers made largest gains
Though on its surface the shift in fourth grade math scores signaled a return to pre-pandemic numbers, the score improvements varied among students. While top performers improved their scores by roughly 11 points on average since 2022, the lowest performers saw an improvement of just five points on the exam, indicating that academic recovery might be uneven.
The big jump for the top performers was a departure from what happened two years ago, when both the high- and low-performers saw their scores fall at about the same rate, roughly 10 points. Meanwhile, for low performers, the score improvement in 2024 was not statistically significant, according to researchers.
Experts noted that a widening gap between high- and low-performing students suggests a need for targeted support, aimed at providing resources to students who are struggling the most.
“It’s tricky in a city like New York City, when so many students are already classified as disadvantaged by conventional criteria,” Pallas added. “So many schools in the city have high concentrations of kids in poverty.”
Hart said some large school districts were able to make significant strides among both low- and high-performing students — like Los Angeles and Washington D.C. in fourth grade math.
“That is possible in New York City as well,” he said. “Targeting our resources to ensure that they are supporting our kids who are from our most traditionally marginalized communities will be critically important.”
Still, across the nation as a whole, Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, noted that the widening achievement gap between high- and low-performing students had existed before the pandemic — growing worse in recent years.
“The lowest performers are struggling,” she said. “This is not just a pandemic story.”
Significant disparities remain in latest NYC testing data
The 2024 testing data also revealed persistent score disparities between student groups in New York City.
In fourth grade math, for example, just 16% of the city’s Black and Hispanic students scored proficient last year. Meanwhile, 53% of white students and 58% of Asian American students scored proficient on the exam.
Since 2003, the gap in average exam score between Black and Hispanic students and their white peers has grown slightly — up to more than 30 points from about 25 at the time, though researchers noted this shift was not statistically significant. (NAEP exams are scored on a scale from 0 to 500).
Performance gaps also surfaced between economically disadvantaged students and their peers — with just 24% of the former scoring proficient in fourth grade math compared to 60% of those who were not economically disadvantaged.
Hart noted that significant gaps between student groups largely correspond with income. When comparing, for example, Black and white students of similar economic need, the disparities in academic performance were far less significant, he said.
“There are much greater challenges for educating those students than there are for the general population,” Hart said. “Making sure that we continue to bring to bear federal and state and local dollars to support our students who are in greatest need — that is what’s most important.”
Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.
