Academic performance statistics show how students are doing across subjects, ages, and learning environments. In the United States, the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported average scores of 237 points in fourth-grade mathematics, 274 points in eighth-grade mathematics, and 214 points in fourth-grade reading. In the OECD’s PISA 2022 assessment, U.S. 15-year-olds averaged 465 points in mathematics, 504 in reading, and 499 in science.
Contents
- 2024 elementary and middle-school mathematics
- 2024 elementary reading performance
- U.S. 15-year-old PISA scores
- PISA proficiency and performance levels
- Socioeconomic and gender gaps
- Progression, opportunity, and learning conditions
2024 elementary and middle-school mathematics
NAEP provides a national picture of U.S. student performance at selected grades. In 2024, U.S. fourth-graders had an average mathematics score of 237 points. That average was 2 points higher than in 2022, but 3 points lower than in 2019. These comparisons describe changes in national assessment scores; they do not measure the performance of an individual student.
Achievement levels add context to the average. In 2024, 39% of U.S. fourth-graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in mathematics, while 24% performed below NAEP Basic. The two figures describe different parts of the distribution, so they should not be treated as complementary categories.
Eighth-grade mathematics performance was higher on the NAEP scale than fourth-grade performance. U.S. eighth-graders had an average score of 274 points in 2024. The eighth-grade average was 11 points higher than in 1990. In the same 2024 assessment, 28% of eighth-graders performed at or above NAEP Proficient, and 61% performed at or above NAEP Basic.
The long-term and recent comparisons answer different questions. The 1990–2024 comparison places eighth-grade mathematics in a multi-decade context, while the fourth-grade 2022–2024 comparison describes a recent change. Both are reported results from NAEP Mathematics: National Trends and Student Skills and its eighth-grade report (NAEP Mathematics: National Trends and Student Skills).
2024 elementary reading performance
U.S. fourth-graders had an average NAEP reading score of 214 points in 2024. The average was 2 points lower than in 2022 and 5 points lower than in 2019. The period matters: the first comparison is a two-year change, while the second compares 2024 with the pre-2020 benchmark reported for 2019.
The 2024 fourth-grade reading distribution included a 10th-percentile score of 158 points, a 25th-percentile score of 189 points, and a 75th-percentile score of 245 points. Percentiles indicate a student’s position relative to other students in the reported assessment distribution; they are not grade equivalents or percentages of questions answered correctly.
In achievement-level terms, 31% of U.S. fourth-graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in reading in 2024. Sixty percent performed at or above NAEP Basic. The results and the recent comparison are reported by NAEP Reading: National Trends and Student Skills. The percentile figures appear in the 2024 NAEP Mathematics and Reading, Grades 4 and 8 – Infographic.
| 2024 U.S. NAEP measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Fourth-grade mathematics average | 237 points |
| Eighth-grade mathematics average | 274 points |
| Fourth-grade reading average | 214 points |
| Fourth-grade mathematics at or above Proficient | 39% |
| Eighth-grade mathematics at or above Proficient | 28% |
| Fourth-grade reading at or above Proficient | 31% |
U.S. 15-year-old PISA scores
PISA measures the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds across participating education systems. In the 2022 cycle, U.S. students recorded a mean mathematics score of 465 points, a mean reading score of 504 points, and a mean science score of 499 points.
The OECD averages for the same cycle were 472 points in mathematics, 476 in reading, and 485 in science. On these measures, the U.S. mean was 7 points below the OECD average in mathematics, 28 points above it in reading, and 14 points above it in science. These are comparisons of reported mean scores, not rankings of every U.S. student.
Singapore recorded the highest PISA 2022 mean score in each of the three subjects listed here: 575 points in mathematics, 543 in reading, and 561 in science. Across all participating education systems, the gap between the highest- and lowest-performing systems was 238 points in mathematics, 214 points in reading, and 214 points in science.
| PISA 2022 mean score | United States | OECD average | Singapore |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathematics | 465 | 472 | 575 |
| Reading | 504 | 476 | 543 |
| Science | 499 | 485 | 561 |
The U.S. figures come from PISA 2022 Results (Volume I and II) – Country Notes: United States. OECD averages, Singapore’s scores, and cross-system gaps are reported in How did countries perform in PISA?: PISA 2022 Results (Volume I).
PISA proficiency and performance levels
PISA Level 2 is used here as a threshold for foundational proficiency, while Levels 5 and 6 identify top performance in mathematics and science. Reading top performance is reported as Level 5 or higher. The percentages describe U.S. 15-year-olds tested in PISA 2022.
At least Level 2 was reached by 66% of U.S. students in mathematics, 80% in reading, and 78% in science. Conversely, 34% scored below Level 2 in mathematics, 20% below Level 2 in reading, and 22% below Level 2 in science.
Top-performance shares were smaller: 7% of U.S. students reached mathematics Levels 5 or 6, 14% reached reading Level 5 or higher, and 11% reached science Levels 5 or 6. The OECD average shares of top performers were 9% in mathematics, 7% in reading, and 7% in science.
These results show why a single mean score is incomplete. A mean summarizes the center of a distribution, while proficiency shares show how many students are below a defined level or in a high-performing group. The definitions and U.S. results are available in the U.S. PISA 2022 country notes.
Socioeconomic and gender gaps
PISA 2022 also reports differences associated with socioeconomic status. In U.S. mathematics, socioeconomically advantaged students outperformed disadvantaged students by 102 score points. The corresponding average socioeconomic mathematics gap across OECD countries was 93 points. Socioeconomic status accounted for 15% of the variation in U.S. mathematics performance.
Performance and opportunity are not identical. Eleven percent of disadvantaged U.S. students scored in their country’s top quarter for PISA 2022 mathematics. This statistic indicates that disadvantaged students were also present among high performers, even as the average socioeconomic gap remained substantial.
The U.S. gender pattern differed by subject. Boys outperformed girls by 13 points in mathematics, while girls outperformed boys by 22 points in reading. In mathematics, 33% of boys and 35% of girls scored below Level 2. In reading, 24% of boys and 16% of girls scored below Level 2.
These figures should be read as group-level assessment results. They describe average differences and shares within the PISA 2022 U.S. sample; they do not predict the result for a particular student or establish why a difference exists.
Progression, opportunity, and learning conditions
Academic performance is shaped within school systems that differ in student progression, early education, decision-making, and staffing. In PISA 2022, 74% of U.S. 15-year-olds were enrolled in 10th grade when they took the assessment. Seventy-nine percent reported attending pre-primary education for at least one year, and 8% reported repeating a grade at least once after entering primary school.
The survey also describes who had responsibility for selected school decisions. Seventy-seven percent of U.S. PISA 2022 students attended schools where principals had the main responsibility for hiring teachers. Forty-eight percent attended schools where teachers had the main responsibility for choosing learning materials.
Staffing conditions were reported by school principals. Forty-two percent of U.S. students were in schools whose principals said instruction was hindered by a lack of teaching staff. Eighteen percent were in schools whose principals said instruction was hindered by inadequate or poorly qualified teaching staff.
These are reported school-context measures, not estimates of the causal effect of staffing or decision-making on test scores. They help place the achievement statistics in the conditions under which students learned during the PISA 2022 period. The full set of U.S. measures is reported in the PISA 2022 Results country notes for the United States.