Charts are keyboard readable: focus a chart, then use the left and right arrow keys to step one reading at a time, hold Shift to step a year (ten readings on a yearly chart), Home and End for the first and last month, Escape to let go. In the timeline, tab to Window Start or Window End and use the arrow keys to move it.
Eighth Graders Below Basic
About This Indicator
What Is This?
The share of eighth graders scoring below Basic, the lowest achievement level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Nation's Report Card, averaged across math and reading. The National Center for Education Statistics tests a national sample every two years or so, and each subject's result stands until its next test.
Why Does It Matter?
Below Basic means a student has not shown even partial mastery of the skills eighth-grade work is built on. Those students start high school behind in every subject that leans on reading and arithmetic, where most of what they will be asked to learn assumes skills they lack. No student, teacher, or school is graded on this test, so no one has reason to teach to it.
Can Politics Influence It?
Schools are run by states and districts, but federal law and money reach them, from the testing rules of No Child Left Behind to pandemic relief funds. Family income, school closures, and how reading and math are taught matter too.
Key Idea
An average score can hold steady while the students at the bottom fall further behind and those at the top pull ahead. Counting who falls short of the lowest bar keeps the students most at risk in view, where an average can hide them.
Scored: A Fall Ranks Better
Source: National Center for Education Statistics. NAEP Data Service, grade 8 mathematics (MRPCM) and reading (RRPCM), national, percent below NAEP Basic (ALC:BB).
Loading the dataset…