RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Kentucky education officials are pointing to some of the strongest academic gains in the country as new data shows a widening divide in the recovery of reading and mathematics across U.S. states.
Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores show that math achievement has rebounded much more broadly since 2022, with most states included in the analysis recording improvements. However, reading has proved harder to turn around, with only a small group of states posting gains between 2022 and 2025.
Kentucky was among those improving in both subjects, placing fifth for reading growth and eighth for math growth among the states included in the study, according to Kentucky Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher.
"Very few states have had the amount of growth that we have," Fletcher told FOX 56 News. "It’s very important that to emphasize that to our teachers, and we thank our teachers for the work that they put in."
Reading remains the more persistent challenge across the U.S . The Education Recovery Scorecard , a joint venture by Harvard and Stanford universities, detailed in its most recent May 2026 report that the decline in reading performance began before the COVID-19 pandemic. National gains had already largely stalled by around 2013 to 2015, before achievement began falling in subsequent years, according to the report.
Researchers found that the annual decline between 2017 and 2019 was roughly comparable to the deterioration recorded during 2019 to 2022 and again from 2022 to 2024. That suggests the disruption caused by the pandemic compounded a problem that was already developing, rather than creating it outright.
There was a tentative improvement in the latest year of data. Average reading achievement increased by about 0.03 grade levels between 2024 and 2025, following several periods in which performance had been declining by roughly one-tenth of a grade level annually, the report said.
However, the broader picture remains weak. The report noted that eighth-grade NAEP reading performance has fallen to its lowest level since 1990, while fourth-grade results have returned to levels last seen before 2003.
Only eight of the 35 jurisdictions with comparable reading data improved between 2022 and 2025. Washington, D.C., recorded the largest rise, gaining 0.335 grade levels, followed by Louisiana at 0.219, Maryland at 0.196 and Tennessee at 0.175. Kentucky gained 0.119 grade levels over the same period.
Elsewhere, Florida recorded the largest decline, at 0.575 grade levels, followed closely by Arizona and Nebraska, which each lost around half a grade level.
Dr. Elizabeth Adams, a clinical child psychologist and co-founder of Ello, told Newsweek that part of the difference between reading and math may lie in how much reading development takes place outside school.
"Math is learned almost entirely at school. Reading is different. It depends enormously on what happens outside the classroom: whether a child reads at home, whether reading is part of family life, whether a child actually enjoys it," Adams said.
She added that reading problems can build over time because later comprehension depends heavily on vocabulary and background knowledge accumulated during earlier years.
"Reading is also cumulative in a way that makes it slower to repair. Comprehension rests on vocabulary and background knowledge built up over years, so a shaky foundation in kindergarten through second grade shows up later as a comprehension problem in fourth grade and beyond."
The recovery in mathematics has been considerably broader. After losses during the pandemic, math achievement began improving after 2022 . The Scorecard found that the annual pace of progress in 2022 to 2024 returned to rates comparable with those seen before the slowdown in national academic progress that began during the 2010s.
Between 2022 and 2025, 33 of the 38 states and jurisdictions with available math data recorded gains. Washington, D.C., posted the strongest result, improving by 0.666 grade levels. Tennessee gained 0.433; Louisiana, 0.425; and Delaware, 0.422.
Kentucky rose by 0.328 grade levels, placing it among the stronger-performing states in the data set.
Only a handful of states recorded declines. Iowa saw the largest drop, losing 0.212 grade levels between 2022 and 2025, while Nebraska fell by 0.188. Wyoming, Idaho and Georgia also recorded small decreases.
Kentucky highlighted the national comparisons after the state Department of Education reported improvements in reading and mathematics during a legislative committee hearing. Fletcher said the NAEP scores ranked Kentucky fifth for growth in reading and eighth in mathematics.
The state has invested in literacy coaches and encouraged changes to how reading is taught, which Fletcher cited as one factor behind Kentucky’s improvement.
Adams said Kentucky was part of a broader pattern in which some states have made faster progress than others, while warning that policy changes alone do not guarantee better results. By and large, curriculum and teaching methods are a matter for the states and are not decided at the federal level, as per the U.S. Constitution.
"Recovery has followed policy choices more than demographics," Adams said. "Every state that improved in reading between 2022 and 2025 was implementing comprehensive early-literacy reform: evidence-based instruction, teacher training, screening, coaching. States that passed on those reforms mostly kept declining, including some historically high-performing ones.
Louisiana, which had the second-largest reading gain in the study, as of 2024 requires foundational literacy instruction in the early grades, literacy screening, interventions for struggling pupils and professional development for teachers. Tennessee introduced ...
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