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NAEP Score Gaps

Score changes ยท 2005 to 2024

How NAEP scores changed, state by state

Pick a subject, a grade, and two test years from 2005 to 2024. Each line is one state: how much its scores changed between the two years for low, middle, and high scorers. A line that slopes up from left to right means low scorers lost more ground than high scorers, so the gap between them grew.

Changes are the comparison year minus the reference year, in NAEP score points.

National public schools are always drawn as the thickest line. States report public schools only, so the nation here is public schools too.

Other states

Change at each percentile

Change in NAEP score points at each percentile. Markers sit at the five percentiles NAEP publishes; filled markers are changes NAEP calls significant. Point at a line for its details; click a line, or a row of the table, to highlight that state or remove its highlight.

Percentile in each year (low scorers on the left)

Change by starting score

The same five percentiles, placed by the score each state had there in the reference year. Each line runs from the 10th percentile (left) to the 90th (right).

Every state, at the five percentiles NAEP reports

Change in the spread

How much the distance between two percentiles changed: the change at the higher percentile minus the change at the lower, in NAEP score points. A positive value means the two moved apart. * NAEP finds the change in the spread significant.

Method

How to read this page

Each year's line comes from the state's published percentiles and its full score distribution, the same method the policy page uses for the nation. The curve passes through the five published percentiles exactly. As a check, we also rebuilt every curve from the score distribution alone and compared it with the published percentiles; The methods page gives the details.

Significance is NAEP's own test of each percentile across the two years. For the spread between two percentiles, such as the 90th minus the 10th, it is NAEP's test of whether that spread changed, from the Gap Analysis in the NAEP Data Explorer.

NAEP tests different students each year, so a change compares one year's students with another's, not the same students over time. A state's student population can also change between years.