Results of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) offer a snapshot of how pandemic school closures impacted students. While looking at Alaska’s scores from all students, as a November 2022 report did, is useful, averaging across demographics may miss differences that help guide effective policy for students facing unique challenges. This report examines Alaska’s performance on the 2022 NAEP based on demographics such as students’ race/ethnicity, gender, income, disability status, and status as an English language learner (ELL).
Unfortunately, student characteristics still correlate with academic achievement, but Alaskan children have the potential to score much better than they currently do. Student demographics are important for educators to consider because children are deeply affected by the circumstances in which they grow up. Further, public policy discussions often revolve around how to close disparities between students of differing demographics. While there is certainly much more to a successful educational experience than test scores, the NAEP offers the only consistent assessment between states through its statistical snapshot of student performance; it does not provide feedback to particular students. This makes it an important tool for assessing public policy choices in the 50-state laboratory of the U.S.
Across all student demographics, Alaska’s fourth graders averaged a score of 204 in reading. This is more than a year behind the national average and ahead of only New Mexico. Alaska’s fourth graders averaged 226 in math, a full year behind the national average. As a rule of thumb, 10 points on the NAEP is roughly equivalent to a year of learning attainment. This report compares Alaska’s performance in different demographics with Florida, the national average, and the average across the Western states.
Florida is an excellent state to compare to Alaska because it was the first to implement both early literacy laws and school choice policies in the early 2000s. Florida’s student body is also diverse, with almost 20% of fourth graders identified as students with disabilities and 12% as English language learners. Almost 55% of Florida students are non-white, while 53% of Alaska’s students are.
Since the 1998 NAEP, Florida’s fourth-grade students have improved by almost two years of reading attainment while Alaska’s fourth graders have lost nine months of attainment since 2003. Florida’s upward trajectory offers hope that the Alaska Reads Act, which emulates early literacy best practices first established in Florida, will help all Alaskan students become stronger readers, regardless of the unique challenges they face.
Key Takeaways
- Alaska was 51st nationwide for low-income fourth-grade reading.
- Alaska’s low-income fourth graders lagged a year and a half behind the national average in reading and a year behind the national average in math. In both subjects, Florida’s low-income fourth graders exceeded Alaska’s average score for all students.
- Fourth-grade students with special needs in Florida averaged the same score in math and only one point lower in reading than Alaska’s fourth-grade average across all demographics.
- Alaska’s male students were more than two years behind Florida’s average for male students and more than a year and a half behind the national average. Alaska’s female students were almost two years behind Florida’s average for female students and about a year behind the national average.
- All ethnic groups in Alaska, except Hispanic students, performed below the national average and Florida’s average in fourth-grade reading and math, sometimes by large margins.
NAEP 2022: Race/Ethnicity
The NAEP breaks down average scores into six school-reported racial/ethnic demographics: American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, black, Hispanic, two or more races, and white. Figure 1 shows the average fourth-grade reading score by ethnicity for Alaska, Florida, nationwide, and the West census area. Almost all Alaskan students fell behind their respective national averages, including white students. There were too few black students in Alaska’s NAEP sample and too few American Indian/Alaska Native students in Florida’s NAEP sample to enable reporting of average scores for those demographics in those states.
In fourth-grade reading, Alaska’s average score for white students fell behind the national average by more than eight months of learning attainment (seven points) and behind Florida’s average by almost a year and a half. Alaska’s Asian/Pacific Islander students fell behind the national average by 35 points, or three and a half years of learning attainment, and almost five years behind Florida’s average (49 points). Alaskan students from two or more races were more than a year and a half behind the national average (16 points) and two and a half years behind Florida’s average (25 points).
However, Alaska’s Hispanic students outperformed the national average by almost a full year of learning (9 points). While Florida’s Hispanic students still outperformed Alaska’s Hispanic students by 8 points (less than a year), this is the smallest gap between Floridian and Alaskan students of the same ethnicity.
Figure 2 shows the average fourth-grade mathematics score by race/ethnicity. The picture is largely the same, with Alaska’s Hispanic students outperforming the national average by slightly less than half a year but underperforming Florida’s average by more than nine months (8 points).
NAEP 2022: Income Level
The NAEP reports average scores in all subjects for students who are eligible for the National School Lunch Program, those who are not, and those for whom that information was not available. Eligibility status for free and reduced lunch (FRL) is a frequently used proxy to identify low-income students.
However, FRL status is a broader measure than “students living in poverty,” because eligibility is set higher than the poverty line by definition. In the contiguous U.S., students from households at or below 130% of the poverty line are eligible for free lunches and students from households between 130% and 180% of the poverty line are eligible for reduced-price lunches. Alaska has higher multipliers than the rest of the U.S. to account for cost-of-living. This means that FRL eligibility in Alaska captures a larger income bracket than in the contiguous U.S. and should be kept in mind when making FRL comparisons between Alaska and other states. There is also some evidence that FRL is oversubscribed because of lax income verification practices.
Our previous report noted that Alaska’s average score in fourth-grade reading for FRL students is 51st, or dead last, in national rankings, and is 15 points below the corresponding national average. Florida’s fourth-grade reading score for FRL students was 215 — 27 points, or two years and eight months of reading attainment—above Alaska’s FRL students. What’s worse is that Florida’s FRL students are doing almost as well as Alaska’s FRL ineligible students (those considered high-income), with a mere three-month gap in reading attainment. Florida’s education system is clearly doing something different and better when its low-income students are doing nearly as well as Alaska’s high-income students.
In fourth-grade mathematics, Florida’s students eligible for FRL posted a full two years of math achievement ahead of Alaska’s students eligible for FRL. Alaska’s FRL students were a year of math achievement behind the national average and almost nine months behind the West.
For fourth graders in both subjects, Florida’s average for low-income students exceeded Alaska’s average for all students. In reading, Florida’s students eligible for FRL averaged a score of 215, while Alaska’s average for all students was 204, a full year behind. In math, Florida’s FRL students scored 233 while Alaska’s average for all students was 226, or almost nine months of achievement.
NAEP 2022: Special Needs
Because students are chosen at random to participate in the NAEP, it includes all students, regardless of special needs, and provides accommodations to gather information to better understand the educational needs of all students.
For Alaskan fourth graders, Figure 5 shows there is a 47-point gap — or almost five years of learning attainment — between those identified as students with disabilities and those not identified as students with disabilities. For Floridians, that gap is only 27 points or almost three years of learning attainment. More concerning, however, is that Florida students with disabilities did as well (203) as Alaska’s average score in fourth-grade reading (204).
The story is not so severe in fourth-grade math. Figure 6 shows the gap between Alaska’s fourth graders with disabilities and those without was only 30 points, or three years of learning attainment. Florida’s gap was only 18 points, or almost two years. Alaska’s average score for all students was 226, while Florida’s fourth graders with disabilities scored just as well.
NAEP 2022: Gender
There is well-documented evidence that female students generally do better in reading and writing than their male peers, but often lag in math and science subjects. A 2004 report on trends in educational equity notes, “Concern exists that this gap in science and mathematics may give them less access to high paying jobs, although there are no data to compare this disadvantage with the possible disadvantage faced by males because of their lower reading and writing achievement.” However, the goal should be for all of Alaska’s students to be prepared with the basic skills needed for the careers and lives they want, regardless of gender and other demographic characteristics.
Figures 7 and 8 show average fourth-grade scores in reading and math for the jurisdictions of interest. Alaska’s fourth-grade female students did better than male students in both subjects, which is a notable reversal of the pattern seen in Florida, the national average, and the West census area. In these other locations, fourth-grade girls outperform boys by seven or eight months in reading, but boys outperform in math by about seven months.
However, in Alaska, the gaps are larger, and female students retain their advantage over males: in reading, girls are more than a year ahead of boys (13 points) and almost five months (4 points) ahead in math. Proffering a reason for these discrepancies is outside of the scope of this report, but providing individualized interventions for students falling behind in reading may help close them.
NAEP 2022: English Language Learners
In the fall of 2019, 12 percent of Alaska’s public school students were identified as ELL compared with 10 percent in Florida. ELL fourth graders did not report significant differences in the 2022 NAEP compared with 2019.
The differences between fourth-grade reading scores for ELL and non-ELL students are relatively small compared to the other differences examined in this report. Florida’s fourth-grade ELL students have a full year of reading attainment above Alaska’s, but ELL students in the West census area are slightly less than three months behind Alaska’s ELL students (2 points).
Alaska’s non-ELL students have two years more reading attainment than their ELL counterparts. Contrast this with Florida and the national average, where non-ELL students are about three years ahead of their ELL counterparts. The West census area reports the largest gap in fourth-grade reading, with non-ELL students demonstrating almost four years of attainment above their ELL counterparts. A narrower two-year gap in Alaska compared to Florida, the national average, and the West census area — while an achievement to celebrate — still leaves much room for improvement in customizing education and supporting students.
In fourth-grade mathematics, Alaska’s gap between ELL and non-ELL students is more like that in other states. Alaska’s ELL students were 2.5 years (25 points) behind their non-ELL counterparts. In Florida, the gap was about two years and nine months (28 points), and the national average was two years and three months (23 points). Florida’s ELL students have a year and almost three months of mathematics attainment above Alaska’s ELL students, as does the national average. However, ELL students in the West census area are only half a year above Alaska’s ELL students.
Conclusion
This report examines results from the 2022 NAEP in more detail than our previous report because averaging across demographics may miss differences that help guide effective policy for students facing unique challenges. Alaskan students have the potential to perform much better than they currently do, regardless of demographic characteristics. Test scores are not the definition of success, but the NAEP, as the only assessment consistent across all states, provides valuable statistical information about Alaska’s student body.
Florida performed as well as it did on the 2022 NAEP no doubt in part due to its early literacy programs, established in 2001, that help direct resources to the students who need the most academic help. Since the 1998 NAEP, Florida has grown two years in reading attainment while Alaska declined nine months in attainment. The Alaska Reads Act, modeled after Florida’s early literacy legislation, is likely to help Alaskan students by delivering targeted interventions to students struggling with reading, regardless of demographic factors. Helping all Alaskan students become stronger readers early will have downstream effects on math and science attainment and later life outcomes, regardless of their unique challenges.