Dismal National Test Scores Provide More Evidence Colleges Should Be Investigated For Fraud

High school seniors clocked their worst reading scores since 1992 and their worst math scores in the last 20 years. Only about 33 percent of students who started college this year were capable of reading at a college level.

Those are the dismal numbers published by the Department of Education on Tuesday, releasing results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which Education Secretary Linda McMahon said “delivered a sobering and heartbreaking truth about the state of education in America. Academic achievement is at historic lows.”

“At a critical time right before students enter their next stage of life, more 12th graders are below the NAEP basic benchmark in math and reading than ever before,” McMahon said.

While previous scores have shown 70 percent of 4th and 8th graders not proficient in reading, with similar results for math, McMahon noted the “bleak trend carries through to our 12th graders.”

Sixty-five percent of high school seniors are not proficient in reading, and over one-third of them cannot explain the main point of a passage of literature or define a key word in a sentence. Seventy-eight percent of seniors are not proficient in math.

Seniors are reading at 35 percent proficiency and doing math at 22 percent proficiency, and as Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at Defending Education, said, “Only one in three high school graduates heading to college this year has the basic math and reading skills to succeed at the next level. For many, college has just become a lengthier and more expensive proposition as they scramble to catch up.”

It is actually worse than that. While test scores continue to drop, college admissions are on the rise.