NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment Results:
Reading and Mathematics

The LTT assessment in reading (first administered in 1971) requires students to read a variety of short texts (expository pieces, poems, riddles, advertisements, and story excerpts) and to respond to questions about what they read. Assessment questions are designed to measure reading comprehension skills, primarily to

Students participating in the assessment read passages and responded to questions in three 15-minute sections. Each section contained three or four short passages and approximately 10 questions.

The Composition of the Long-Term Trend Reading Assessment

The 2025 long-term trend reading assessment was composed of 31 short passages at age 9 and 37 short passages at age 13. There were 78 questions at age 9 and 94 questions at age 13. The majority of these questions were multiple choice. One constructed-response question was included in some, but not all, of the nine sections administered at each age. Note that individual students did not respond to the entirety of the assessment content, but to three sections as described just above.

Number of reading passages and questions in NAEP long-term trend reading assessment, by student age group and question type: 2025

Some of the reading assessment questions were administered to students at more than one age. For example, of the 78 questions that made up the reading assessment for 9-year-olds, 39 questions were also administered at age 13.

Number of questions in NAEP long-term trend reading assessment at and across student age groups: 2025

† Not applicable.

The LTT assessment in mathematics (first administered in 1973) requires students to respond to a variety of questions designed to measure

Students participating in the assessment responded to questions in three 15-minute sections. Each section contained approximately 21 to 34 questions. The majority of questions students answered were presented in a multiple-choice format. Some questions were administered at more than one age. 

The Composition of the Long-Term Trend Mathematics Assessment

The 2025 LTT mathematics assessment included 135 questions at age 9 and 151 questions at age 13. The majority of these questions were multiple choice. Some constructed-response questions were included in each of the sections administered at each age. Note that individual students did not respond to the entirety of the assessment content, but to three sections as described just above.

Number of questions in NAEP long-term trend mathematics assessment, by student age group and question type: 2025

Some of the mathematics assessment questions were administered across more than one age group. For example, of the 151 questions that made up the mathematics assessment for 13-year-olds, 24 questions were also administered at age 9.

Number of questions in NAEP long-term trend mathematics assessment at and across student age groups: 2025

† Not applicable.

The 1973 Mathematics Results

The mathematics trend scale was developed in 1986 for all the assessment years up to that point. Because the 1973 mathematics assessment had too few questions in common with the 1978, 1982, and 1986 assessments, it was not included in the scaling of NAEP long-term trend mathematics data. However, an estimate of the 1973 average mathematics score was computed for the nation at each of the three age levels. Results from the 1973 assessment were placed on the same 0 to 500 mathematics scale using mean proportion correct extrapolation. The extrapolated estimates for each age level were obtained by assuming a linear relationship between a student group's average scale score and the logit transformation of the group's average percentage of correct responses. The same linear relationship was assumed to hold across assessment years and student groups within an age level. For more information, see the Mathematics Data Analysis chapter in Expanding the New Design: The NAEP 1985-86 Technical Report. Because of the need to extrapolate the average scale scores, caution should be used in interpreting the patterns of trends when comparing results from other assessment years to 1973. Only the overall average mathematics score results for the nation are presented in this long-term trend report for the 1973 extrapolated data.

The target population for the NAEP long-term trend assessments in 2025 at ages 9 and 13 consisted of students in each age group enrolled in public and private schools nationwide. Eligibility for the age 9 and age 13 samples was based on the calendar year. Students in the age 9 sample were 9 years old on January 1, 2025, with birth months January through December 2015. Students in the age 13 sample were 13 years old on January 1, 2025, with birth months January through December 2011. The national samples for students at ages 9 and 13 were chosen using a multistage design that involved drawing students from the sampled public and private schools across the country. Within each age group, the results from the assessed students were combined to provide accurate estimates of the overall performance of students in the nation.

The schools and students participating in NAEP assessments are selected to be representative of all schools nationally. Approximately 7,400 age 9 students from 400 schools and approximately 8,200 age 13 students from 440 schools were assessed in the 2025 long-term trend reading assessments. Another set of students from the same schools with similar sample sizes participated in the 2025 long-term trend mathematics assessment. No students were assessed in both subjects. The long-term trend assessments are not designed to provide results for individual states or large urban districts. Results are reported for the nation only.

Number of participating schools and students in NAEP long-term trend reading and mathematics assessments, by student age group: 2025

NOTE: Students were either assessed in reading or mathematics long-term trend assessment. The number of schools is rounded to the nearest ten. The number of students is rounded to the nearest hundred.

Each school that participated in the assessment and each student assessed represents only a portion of the larger population of interest. The results are weighted to account for the disproportionate representation of some groups in the selected sample, including oversampling of schools with high concentrations of students from certain racial/ethnic groups and the lower sampling rates of students who attend small schools. Read more about NAEP sampling and weighting in the NAEP Technical Documentation.

School and Student Participation

The weighted national school participation rates (before replacing originally sampled schools that declined to participate with substitute schools) for the 2025 long-term trend assessments are presented in the table below. Although not shown in the table, the national student participation rate for 9-year-old students was 91 percent in each subject in 2025, and the national student participation rate for 13-year-old students was 89 percent in each subject. Please see the appendix table for the weighted school participation rates after substitution and the details for the student participation rates.

School participation rates in NAEP long-term trend reading and mathematics assessments, by student age group and type of school: 2025

NOTE: Private schools include Catholic, other religious, and nonsectarian private schools.

To ensure unbiased samples, NAEP statistical standards require that participation rates for original school samples be 70 percent or higher to report national results separately for public and private school students. At both ages, the school participation rates met the standards for reporting results separately for public schools in 2025 but not for private schools. However, the Catholic school participation rate for both ages 9 and 13 students did meet the standards in 2025 for reporting results separately.

NAEP Inclusion

Assessing representative samples of students, including students with disabilities and English learners, helps to ensure that NAEP results accurately reflect the educational performance of all students in the target population and are a meaningful measure of U.S. students' academic achievement over time.

To ensure that all selected students from the population can be assessed, many of the same accommodations that SD and EL students use on other tests are provided for those students participating in NAEP. Prior to 2004, no testing accommodations were allowed for students identified as SD and/or EL selected to participate in the long-term trend assessments. One of the changes introduced as part of the 2004 assessments was the use of accommodations, such as extra testing time or individual rather than group administration for students who needed such accommodations to participate in the assessments. The results for the 2004 revised assessment format and for 2008 and later long-term trend assessments are based on administration procedures that allowed accommodations.

Information on exclusion rates of SD and/or EL students was first collected in 1990. At that time, about 5 to 6 percent of all students at each age group were excluded from the long-term trend assessments. In 2025, about 3 to 5 percent of all students at each age group were excluded.

NAEP began administering long-term trend assessments periodically in the 1970s. Long-term trend reading and mathematics results are reported as average scores on a 0 to 500 scale and as percentages of students performing at or above NAEP long-term trend performance levels. Although the scale range is the same for both reading and mathematics, scores cannot be directly compared across subjects because the scales were developed independently of each other.

NAEP assessments are designed to best support certain types of inferences. In the case of long-term trend, subsequent to the baseline Item Response Theory scaling that established the cross-age scales, the assessment has been scaled within age. These within-age scalings involve jointly analyzing the data from the current and most recent NAEP long-term trend assessments. These separate within-age scalings are then linked to the cross-age scale that was originally established (in 1984 for reading and 1986 for mathematics using data from those years and earlier administrations). This approach strengthens the evidence that the assessment provides to support within-age comparisons across time. Because the assessment was explicitly scaled in a cross-age manner only in the base year, cross-age comparisons are most strongly supported in that year rather than in subsequent assessment years. While within-age scales from subsequent years have been aligned to the initial cross-age scale, and cross-age comparisons may be reasonably well supported, the emphasis continues to be on within-age comparisons. It should be borne in mind, however, that NAEP is not a cohort or longitudinal design, and the LTT assessments have not been given at intervals that coincide with the age span (4 years apart) in the assessment and have been given at different times of the year for the three ages (9, 13, and 17). As a result, inferences about the performance of cohorts of students over time should not be made based on NAEP LTT results. Read more about the NAEP scaling process in the NAEP Technical Documentation.

In addition to the average scale score, NAEP also reports scores at five selected percentiles to show the progress made by lower- (10th and 25th percentiles), middle- (50th percentile), and higher- (75th and 90th percentiles) performing students. The percentile is defined by the percentage of students scoring lower than a particular scale score. The results for all five selected percentiles are presented for the overall national level in this report. However, in order to maintain adequate sample sizes that support reportable results, two selected percentiles are reported for student groups: the 25th percentile (lower-performing students) and the 75th percentile (higher-performing students).

Setting LTT Performance Levels

Results are also presented in terms of the percentages of students reaching performance levels. The long-term trend performance levels are distinct from the achievement levels that have been set for main NAEP assessments. To help interpret NAEP long-term trend results, the reading and mathematics scales were each divided into five successive levels of performance (150, 200, 250, 300, and 350). A "scale anchoring" process was used to define what it meant to score at each of these levels. Questions were identified that were more likely to be answered correctly by students performing at each level on the scale and less likely to be answered correctly by students performing at the next lower level. Students at a given level had to have at least a 65 to 80 percent probability of answering the question correctly; students at the next lower level had a much lower probability of answering it correctly. The difference in probabilities between adjacent levels had to exceed 30 percent. Content specialists for each subject examined these empirically selected question sets and used their professional judgment to characterize each level. The reading scale anchoring was conducted on the basis of the 1984 assessment, and the scale anchoring for mathematics was based on the 1986 assessment.

Interpreting Statistical Significance

NAEP reports results using widely accepted statistical standards; findings are reported based on a statistical significance level set at .05, with appropriate adjustments for multiple comparisons. Only those differences that are found to be statistically significant are referred to as "higher" or "lower."

Comparisons over time of scores and percentages or between groups are based on statistical tests that consider both the size of the difference and the standard errors of the two statistics being compared. Standard errors are margins of error, and estimates based on smaller groups are likely to have larger margins of error. The size of the standard errors may also be influenced by other factors, such as the degree to which the assessed students are representative of the entire population. Standard errors for the estimates presented in this report are available in the NAEP Data Explorer (NDE).

While average scores and percentages are presented as whole numbers in the report, statistical significance tests are based on unrounded values. In some cases, groups with the same reported whole number may differ in their underlying estimates, and those differences can be statistically significant. The "Customize data tables" link at the bottom of the page provides data tables from the NDE. The tables offer detailed information on more precise values for the scores and percentages and explain how the two comparison estimates differ from each other.

A scale score that is statistically significantly higher or lower in comparison to an earlier assessment year is reliable evidence that student performance has changed. While comparisons are made in students' performance based on demographic characteristics and educational experiences, NAEP is not a controlled experiment that can be used to identify the causes of change or difference in student performance. Many factors may influence student achievement, including educational policies and practices and available resources. Such factors may change over time and vary among student groups.

NAEP Reporting Groups

Race/Ethnicity

Results by students' race/ethnicity are presented in this report based on information collected from two different sources:

Observed Race/Ethnicity. Students were assigned to a racial/ethnic category based on the assessment administrator's observation. A category for Hispanic students did not exist in 1971, but was included in subsequent years. The results for the 2004 original assessment format and all previous assessment years are based on observed race/ethnicity.

School-Reported Race/Ethnicity. Data about students' race/ethnicity from school records were collected in 2004 but were not collected for any of the previous NAEP long-term trend assessments. The results presented in this report for the 2004 revised assessment format and for 2008 and later assessment years are based on school-reported race/ethnicity.

In addition, results for Asian/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Alaska Native students are not reported separately because there were too few students in the groups for statistical reliability in certain assessment years, but the full results for these two groups along with the other racial/ethnic groups are available in the NAEP Data Explorer.

Parents' Education Level

Students were asked to indicate the extent of schooling for each of their parents, choosing among the following options: did not finish high school, graduated from high school, had some education after high school, or graduated from college. The response indicating the highest level of education for either parent was selected for reporting. The questions were presented only to students at ages 13 and 17. (Results for parental education are not reported at age 9 because research has shown that students' reports of their parents' education level are less reliable at this age.) Although students in previous long-term trend assessments were asked about their parents' level of education, the wording of the question in the revised format of the reading assessments administered in 2004 and later was different from previous years. Consequently, results from the 2004 and later reading assessments are reported for the parents' education level variable in this report. However, this is not the case for the long-term trend mathematics assessment. Results for this variable in mathematics go back to 1978.

Grade Attended

The long-term trend assessments are administered to samples of students defined by age rather than by grade. Nine-year-olds are typically in fourth grade, 13-year-olds are typically in eighth grade, and 17-year-olds are typically in eleventh grade. Some students in each age group, however, are in a grade that is below or above the grade that is typical for their age. For example, some 13-year-olds are in the seventh or ninth grade rather than the eighth grade. Different factors may contribute to why students are in a lower or higher grade than is typical for their age. Such factors could include students having started school a year earlier or later than usual, having been held back a grade, or having skipped a grade.

See more information about the student groups that NAEP reports in the long-term trend assessments.

Students and school administrators participating in the NAEP long-term trend assessments in reading and mathematics responded to a short survey questionnaire. NAEP survey questionnaire responses provide additional information for understanding NAEP performance results. Although comparisons in students' performance are made based on student characteristics and educational experiences, NAEP is not a controlled experiment that can be used to identify the causes of change or difference in student performance. Many factors may influence student achievement, including educational policies and practices and available resources. Such factors may change over time and vary among student groups. Therefore, results must be interpreted with caution. See more about NAEP survey questionnaires.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is a congressionally authorized project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. The National Center for Education Statistics, within the Institute of Education Sciences, administers NAEP. The Commissioner of Education Statistics is responsible by law for carrying out the NAEP project. The National Assessment Governing Board oversees and sets policy for NAEP.

For questions related to the NAEP administration or this report's results, contact Ebony Walton. For questions related to NAEP policy or frameworks, contact the National Assessment Governing Board or call 202-357-6938.