A New View of State Performance on the Nation’s Report Card
Basis applied a composite NAEP methodology to all 50 states and D.C. to examine where states stand today and how their national standing has changed since 2003.
Building a Single Measure of State Achievement
The report standardizes and combines state results from the four core NAEP assessments in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and mathematics into one composite score of statewide academic performance. Using publicly available NCES estimates from 2003 through 2024, the analysis ranks states nationally and within Census regions, tracks long-term changes in rank, and calculates separate composites for White, Black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, and non-economically disadvantaged students.
The study also tests the widely publicized “Southern Surge” against two distinct dimensions: current national standing in 2024 and long-term change in rank since 2003. A validation analysis compared five alternative composite specifications, including precision-weighted variants, to confirm rankings were not sensitive to methodological choices.
Statistics
Impact in Action
Jurisdictions Ranked
All 50 states and the District of Columbia reported results on every assessment in every year from 2003 to 2024, giving a consistent comparison pool across two decades.
Positions gained by Tennessee
Tennessee rose from 42nd in 2003 to 16th in 2024, the largest rank gain of any state and the only Southern state in the national top 20.
No Southern States in the National Top 15
Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New Hampshire led the 2024 composite, while Florida (23rd), Mississippi (28th), Texas (35th), Louisiana (36th), and Alabama (43rd) remained well below the top tier despite the “Southern Surge” narrative.
Why The Study Matters
Policymakers routinely compare states across multiple NAEP assessments, yet no widely adopted summary measure exists for doing so. The composite measure fills that gap while making clear what rankings alone can hide: adjacent ranks can be separated by trivial score differences, large long-term gains do not guarantee high current standing, and a state’s overall position can look very different for different student groups.
By separating where states stand from how far they have moved, the work gives education leaders a more complete picture of the Southern Surge and a replicable tool for tracking state performance over time.