PRESS RELEASE
May 13, 2026
Contact: Sam Stockwell
samuel_stockwell@gse.harvard.edu
617.495.0342
Arizona Ranks 31st in Math Recovery and 34th in Reading Among States, with Districts on the Rise Emerging Across the State
Students remain more than half a grade level below 2019 levels in both math and reading.
Alhambra, Isaac, Paradise Valley Unified, Santa Cruz Valley Unified, and Tucson Unified are leading the way in math recovery compared to their peers.
(May 13, 2026) In its fourth year, the Education Scorecard (a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, and faculty at Dartmouth College) is issuing its annual report on district-level student growth in math and reading.
The latest report provides a high-resolution picture of where Arizona students’ academic recovery stands, combining state test results for roughly 35 million grade 3–8 students nationwide with national assessment data to describe changes in local communities. Here’s what we found:
Arizona:
- Arizona ranks 31st out of 38 states in academic growth in math and 34th out of 35 states in reading between 2022 and 2025.
- In math, the average student is performing about .03 grade equivalents above their 2022 level, but .63 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. Some districts like Sunnyside Unified School District and Pendergast, Cartwright, and Yuma Elementary Districts continue to lag behind 2019 levels.
- In reading, the average student is performing about half a grade equivalent below their 2022 level, and .55 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. A number of districts like Sunnyside and Tucson Unified School Districts and Kyrene and Cartwright Elementary Districts continue to slip and remain behind their 2019 levels.
- Several Arizona districts are emerging as Districts on the Rise relative to their peers in math. These districts have shown unusual progress relative to similar districts in their own state. Alhambra, Isaac, Paradise Valley Unified, Santa Cruz Valley Unified, and Tucson Unified school districts are leading the way in math performance.
- Arizona received about $4 billion in federal pandemic relief for K–12 schools—roughly $3,500 per student. Our analysis finds that the gains in many high-poverty districts were driven by this federal support. Unfortunately, many middle-poverty districts (those with 30 to 70 percent of students receiving federal lunch subsidies) received little federal aid. Now that the federal relief is gone, Arizona should focus school improvement dollars on the middle and higher poverty districts that remain behind their 2019 levels.
“The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement,” said Professor Tom Kane, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. “The ‘learning recession’ started a decade ago, after policymakers switched off the early warning system of test-based accountability and social media took over children’s lives. In this report, we highlight the work of a small group of state leaders who have started digging out by changing how students learn to read, and 108 local school districts that are finding ways to get students learning again. The recovery of U.S. education has begun. But it’s up to the rest of us to spread it.”
