With the release of the 2024 NAEP reading results, a disturbing new story is developing:

• Reading Scores Fall to New Low on NAEP, Fueled by Declines for Struggling Students (Education Week)
• Florida reading, math scores fall to lowest mark in more than 20 years on nation’s report card (Orlando Sentinel)

The media has long been obsessed with reading in the US, crying “crisis” every decade over the past century. The most recent media-based reading crisis has prompted aggressive and new reading legislation reaching back over a decade, policy and programs identified as the “science of reading” (SOR).

The hand wringing over the 2024 NAEP reading results, however, seems to focus on learning loss and post-Covid consequences—not that reading achievement on NAEP was flat during the balanced literacy era and now has dropped steadily during the SOR era:

Suddenly, media appears to forget that the SOR movement was built on a series of baseless claims: the US has a reading crisis (despite NAEP score being flat for decades) because teachers do not know how to teach reading and rely on failed reading programs and balanced literacy.

The foundational claim of the SOR movement has been firmly discredited: “[T]here is no indisputable evidence of a national crisis in reading, and even if there were a crisis, there is no evidence that the amount of phonics in classrooms is necessarily the cause or the solution.”

But a key element of the SOR story is often overlooked: “One of the excuses educators have long offered to explain America’s poor reading performance is poverty.”

In other words, the SOR story argues that the US has a reading crisis that is entirely the result of in-school policies and practices, that SOR-based reading instruction guarantees 95%+ of students will achieve reading proficiency.

How then is the recent 5-year decline in NAEP scores being blamed on out-of-school factors, Covid learning loss? The story being sold is such blame is merely an excuse.

The problem here is that the entire SOR story is a series of misrepresentations and ideological claims not grounded (ironically) is research or evidence.

As I have noted, NAEP achievement levels are confusing since “proficient” is well above grade level and “basic” tends to correlate with most state metrics for “proficient” (see here for a full explanation and state/NAEP correlations).

However, journalists persists is misrepresenting NAEP scores in order to feed their manufactured “crisis” story: Two-Thirds of Kids Struggle to Read, and We Know How to Fix It.

With the release of 2024 NAEP scores on reading, we have an opportunity to embrace a different story, a credible story, by examining scores from Department of Defense (DoDEA) schools as well as Mississippi and Florida.

First, note that DoDEA schools again are the top scoring schools in grade 4 reading, but MS and FL rank in the top 25% of states despite challenging populations of students being served (both states appear to be outliers defying the odds):

Both MS and FL have been praised for their reading and education reform; however, there are two parts to this “miracle” story that are often left out, that show there is a mirage, not a miracle.

First, MS and FL join many states that have enacted SOR reading reform over the past decade-plus, yet the research on that reading reform highlights something other than reading instruction or programs.

Westall and Cummings concluded in a report on reading policy: “[S]tates whose policies mandate third-grade retention see significant and persistent increases in high-stakes reading scores in all cohorts…. [T]here is no consistent evidence that high-stakes reading scores increase in states without a retention component [emphasis added].”

States implementing K-3 grade retention are gaming the system by pulling out the lowest performing students and then re-inserting them into the testing population when older.

In fact, MS has been retaining about 9000-10,000 K-3 students a year since 2014, and FL retains about 17,000 students annually. [1]

Beyond the impact of grade retention on test scores, we should also ask: If SOR “works,” why do states continue to retain about the same number of students per year?

But NAEP also tells a story about SOR that has been ignored for years. Both MS and FL rank in the top 25% of grade 4 but the bottom 25% by grade 8 while DoDEA remains the top scoring schools in both grades:

Grade retention creates a mirage of achievement in grade 4 that disappears by grade 8, further evidence that SOR is not working at either grade.

Reading achievement as measured on testing has never been about reading instruction, teacher quality, or reading programs.

DoDEA school reading achievement is a testament to what research has shown for decades about student achievement:

Almost 63% of the variance in test performance was explained by social capital family income variables….The influence of family social capital variables manifests itself in standardized test results. Policy makers and education leaders should rethink the current reliance on standardized test results as the deciding factor to make decisions about student achievement, teacher quality, school effectiveness, and school leader quality. In effect, policies that use standardized test results to evaluate, reward, and sanction students and school personnel are doing nothing more than rewarding schools that serve advantaged students and punishing schools that serve disadvantaged students.

DoDEA student populations are diverse, often coming from impoverished and working class backgrounds; these schools also serve vulnerable and challenging populations of students.

However, teacher pay is high, and those students have healthcare, food and housing security, and parents with stable work.

DoDEA students almost all have the advantages mostly afforded children living in privilege so that how and what they are taught can matter.

If reading and literacy matter—and they do—and education matters in the US, we are well past blaming teachers, declaring false “miracles,” and jumping on the reading program merry-go-round once again.

Students must have their lives addressed so that their education can serve them well.

NAEP scores tell us little about reading (or math), but confirms again and again that the US is a country determined to ignore the corrosive impact of inequity on the lives and education of children.

Update

Media has only one story—a false one—about outliers in NAEP scores. Compare the coverage of MS in 2019 with LA 2024:

[1] Note that in the early 2000s, FL was the “miracle” state and established the Florida Model that essentially became the MS “miracle.”

Next up is LA, and most of the coverage is claiming LA’s success is because the state has copied MS.

And a part of the lineage is more grade retention. Here are the currently available data on LA grade retention: