{"id":315788,"date":"2026-08-07T03:58:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315788\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T03:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:58:22","slug":"less-than-half-of-3rd-8th-graders-in-ny-state-are-reading-proficient-test-scores-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315788\/","title":{"rendered":"Less Than Half of 3rd-8th Graders in NY State Are Reading Proficient, Test Scores Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was\u00a0originally published<\/a>\u00a0by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at\u00a0ckbe.at\/newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reading proficiency plunged across New York state last school year while math scores ticked up slightly, according to preliminary state test results obtained by Chalkbeat.<\/p>\n

About 48% of students across the state were proficient in reading on the 2025 state exams administered in grades 3-8, down 5 percentage points year over year. Meanwhile, 57% of students passed the math exams last school year, a modest gain.<\/p>\n

The dramatic decline in reading proficiency raised eyebrows among multiple experts who noted state test scores tend to change gradually. The declines also appeared to be concentrated in grades 3-5. Fifth-grade reading proficiency declined 14 percentage points last year, for instance, the largest drop of any grade level. The prior year, fifth-grade scores soared 13 percentage points.<\/p>\n

\u201cData doesn\u2019t usually look like that,\u201d said Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University who has studied patterns in state assessment results. \u201cThose are pretty big year-on-year swings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oster noted that the math results are more consistent with other states that have seen\u00a0incremental progress in the wake of pandemic-era declines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York State reading score proficiency rates for grades 3-8, by grade and school year. Credit: New York State Education Department<\/p>\n

The drop in reading scores comes as state officials have\u00a0nudged school districts to embrace the science of reading<\/a>, a longstanding body of evidence about how children learn to read. New York City, which enrolls nearly 40% of the state\u2019s public school students, has\u00a0mandated sweeping changes to elementary school literacy instruction<\/a>\u00a0to boost student achievement. (District-level results are not yet publicly available. Last year, the\u00a0state and city reading scores<\/a>\u00a0both increased by roughly the same amount.)<\/p>\n

State test scores are an imperfect measure of any single policy because many different factors influence student achievement. But officials often use the scores to bolster the case for their preferred policies \u2014 including New York City\u2019s reading overhaul \u2014 and scores are typically considered a rough barometer of the school system\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department takes this decline seriously and will conduct a detailed analysis to better understand where students are experiencing challenges, which student groups and communities have been most affected, and where additional support and resources are needed,\u201d state Education Department spokesperson J.P. O\u2019Hare said in a statement.<\/p>\n

More detailed data is expected soon, though city and state officials did not confirm exactly when district-level scores will be available.<\/p>\n

Multiple experts who reviewed the testing data at Chalkbeat\u2019s request said the fluctuations could point to changes with the test itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing statewide numbers that are patterned in that way really leads me to worry about something unusual in the 2024 test and how it was scored,\u201d said Aaron Pallas, a Teachers College professor who has studied school performance. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have 2024 data, we\u2019d say things are pretty stable.\u201d<\/p>\n

State officials reduced the number of questions students needed to answer correctly to be marked proficient in 2024, raising questions from some observers about whether the test was easier<\/a>. State officials previously stressed that the scoring changes were standard adjustments to account for the difficulty of the test questions and did not make the exam easier.<\/p>\n

The state is also in the process of\u00a0transitioning to computer-based assessments<\/a>\u00a0instead of paper-and-pencil tests. Experts were skeptical that would explain the fluctuations and state officials said they have extensively studied the question and said the effect is negligible.<\/p>\n

Andrew Ho, a Harvard professor who serves on a panel of experts who are paid to advise New York on its state assessment system, said he believes the test reflects changes in student achievement but the exact magnitude may be noisy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safe bet is that there was a real gain and a real decline,\u201d he said, \u201cbut probably neither is as big as we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials should pay close attention to a range of data sources, including federal tests that are often considered the gold standard and consider data over multiple years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always about triangulating information,\u201d Ho said. \u201c\u2018Don\u2019t overreact to blips\u2019 is the sort of statisticians\u2019 mantra.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, experts said policymakers should still take the drop in reading scores seriously, especially as many students have not fully recovered from pandemic-era learning disruptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of kids who are not going to be able to go on and keep advancing in school,\u201d Oster said. \u201cIt means that we need more tutoring\u201d in addition to other support.<\/p>\n

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at\u00a0azimmerman@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was\u00a0originally published\u00a0by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at\u00a0ckbe.at\/newsletters. Reading proficiency plunged across New York state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4337,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-315788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-department-of-education","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}