65 Percent of Public School 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading

Almost two-thirds of eighth graders in public schools are not proficient in reading, Department of Education test results showed.

In results from the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 65 percent of eighth-graders were not "proficient," while 67 percent were not proficient in mathematics, the report said, a CNS analysis noted.

Massachusetts had the highest percentage of students that were proficient in math and in reading, the test results showed.

• 50 percent of Massachusetts' eighth graders were proficient in math; Louisiana had the lowest percentage, 19 percent.
• 49 percent of Massachusetts' eighth graders were proficient in reading, while New Mexico students had the lowest percentage, 24 percent.

Results in urban districts showed that students in Charlotte, N.C., and Austin, Texas, were the most proficient in math and reading, the CNS analysis found.

Public school students in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas were the most proficient in math and reading, while students in Detroit were the least proficient among the 27 large urban districts that the Education Department published the 2017 NAEP scores.

• 41 percent of eighth graders in Charlotte were the most proficient in math; 36 percent of eighth graders in Austin were the most proficient in reading.
• 5 percent of eighth-graders in Detroit are proficient in math; 7 percent are proficient in reading.

The NAEP math and reading tests are on a scale from 0 to 500. Eighth-grade public school students had an average reading score of 265, and an average math score of 282.

Overall, the reading score for eighth-graders increased by one point compared to 2015, and all reading and math scores are higher than they were in the 1990s, the report said.

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