Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

High schools have been left behind by many efforts to improve the academic quality of U.S. schools. Federal accountability policies require annual testing in math and reading for grades 3-8 but only once in high school, where schools are also held accountable for increasing graduation rates. The relative lack of attention to secondary schools has coincided with disappointing national student achievement results for high school students, even as achievement among elementary and middle school students has risen significantly.

Has high school quality stagnated, or even deteriorated, as student achievement has increased in elementary and middle schools? Or are there other factors, such as demographics or declining student effort, which explain stagnant high school achievement? This report addresses these questions using student-level data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). We examine the results of nationally representative math and reading tests that have been administered since the early 1970s to better understand why the academic gains posted by elementary and middle school students have not persisted into high school.

The data strongly suggest that stagnant achievement among high school students is a real phenomenon. This result is consistent across different versions of the NAEP and with other achievement tests, and does not appear to result from changes in who is taking the test, flaws in test design and administration, or declining student effort.

Understanding why students are leaving high school with math and reading skills not much better than their parents awaits better data and research. We recommend several improvements to NAEP, including the regular assessment of high school students across the nation and in each state, as is currently done for younger students. There is also a critical need for researchers and policy makers to renew their focus on high schools and ensure that they do not squander the academic gains that elementary and middle schools have produced.