How is your state teaching kids to read?

Scores are average scale scores for public school students on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), grade 4 reading, published by the National Center for Education Statistics in January 2025. The next state results (2026 assessment) are expected in early 2027. Raw ranks follow the order NCES publishes for all 52 jurisdictions it reports: Department of Defense schools (234) first, then the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with states that share a score listed alphabetically. This is the convention behind Mississippi's official 2024 rank of 9th in fourth-grade reading. Adjusted ranks are from the Urban Institute's "States' Demographically Adjusted Performance on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress" (Chingos and Blagg, January 2025), which covers the 50 states but not the District of Columbia. Law and retention summaries were compiled from state statutes, state education agencies, ExcelinEd, the Shanker Institute's Reading Reform Across America tracker, and Education Week's science-of-reading legislation tracker, as of November 2026. "Is it working?" is a plain-language read of the evidence to date, not a formal evaluation.