PRESS RELEASE
May 13, 2026
Contact: Sam Stockwell
samuel_stockwell@gse.harvard.edu
617.495.0342
Idaho Ranks 35th in Math Recovery but 11th in Reading Among States, with Districts on the Rise Emerging Across the State
Math scores have slipped below 2022 levels, while reading recovery has outpaced most of the country.
Students remain nearly half a grade level below 2019 levels in math and over half a grade level behind in reading.
Districts like Kuna Joint, Coeur d’Alene, Joint School District No. 2, Lewiston Independent, and Mountain Home are outperforming their peers in both math and reading.
(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 Idaho 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:
Idaho:
- Idaho ranks 35th out of 38 states in academic growth in math and 11th out of 35 states in reading between 2022 and 2025.
- In math, the average student is performing about .03 grade equivalents below their 2022 level, and about .47 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. Some districts like Minidoka County J.D., Nampa, and Vallivue continue to lag behind 2019 levels.
- In reading, the average student is performing about .05 grade equivalents below their 2022 level, and about .59 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. A number of districts like Oneida County, Minidoka County J.D., Nampa, and Jerome J.D. continue to slip and remain behind their 2019 levels.
- Several Idaho districts are emerging as Districts on the Rise. These districts have shown unusual progress relative to similar districts in their own state. A core group of districts is excelling in both math and reading, with districts like Kuna Joint, Coeur d’Alene, Joint School District No. 2, Lewiston Independent, and Mountain Home outperforming their peers.
- Statewide, there is some good news on chronic absenteeism (students missing more than 10% of a school year), which has fallen from 22.4% in 2022 to 14.9% in 2025.
- Idaho received about $684 million in federal pandemic relief for K–12 schools—roughly $2,200 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, Idaho should focus school improvement dollars on the middle and higher poverty districts that remain behind their pre-pandemic 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.”
Spotlight: Kuna Joint School District
Among Idaho’s Districts on the Rise excelling in both math and reading, Kuna Joint School District (KJSD) stands out for building a multi-tiered leadership and instructional alignment system that connects central office strategy to daily classroom practice. The district partnered with the McREL Institute to equip principals as instructional leaders around 21 research-based leadership practices, aligning both principal and district-level evaluation systems to those practices. Monthly Guiding Coalition meetings at the district level bring together principals and instructional coaches to align on essential standards; those meetings are mirrored at the school level, where principals lead their own monthly Guiding Coalitions; and weekly PLCs—supported by an early-release Wednesday schedule—maintain alignment between the district’s vision and classroom instruction. Each year, every principal identifies a specific instructional goal with targeted “look-fors,” supported through regular classroom observations and feedback cycles with instructional coaches. On literacy, the district made an early commitment to the science of reading beginning in 2009—training all teachers, then reading coaches, then principals and district leaders over a three-year period, and eventually even board members, so every level of the system could recognize and advocate for effective reading instruction. The district uses HMH Into Reading for elementary ELA, Savvas myPerspectives at the middle school level, and CommonLit in high school, with a dense assessment system including state benchmarks through Amira Learning, monthly Amira formative assessments, and teacher-developed common formative assessments delivered monthly at the elementary level. Beginning in 2025–26, KJSD added a dedicated reading class block in addition to Language Arts for middle schoolers. In math, i-Ready curriculum serves grades K–8, and a long-running partnership with Boise State University’s Teaching Mathematical Thinking program—sustained through grant funding even after state funding was eliminated—built a strong foundation for the district’s math leadership and data-driven culture. Districtwide AVID programming teaches students the WICOR framework (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading) from elementary through high school, equipping learners with the study skills, note-taking habits, and organizational strategies needed to succeed across content areas. For the full case study, click here.
