The Nation’s Achievement Inequality Report Card: An Assessment of Test Score and Equality Trends in Traditional Public, Charter, Catholic, and Department of Defense Schools

We present a descriptive comparison of trends in achievement and inequality in traditional public, public charter, Catholic, and Department of Defense schools in the U.S. Our sample includes 6,155,570 observations for 4th and 8th graders in math and reading between 2005 and 2024. We focus on changes in the 90th and 10th percentile scores of the students in those school sectors on the National Assessment of Education Progress, adjusted for key student demographics. Analysis of exactly 1000 overall and subgroup achievement trends reveals that the 90–10 performance gaps are largest and widening at the fastest rate in the traditional public school sector, chiefly due to the declining annual trend for its low achievers at the 10th percentile. Most of this increase in inequality occurred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which merely accelerated the pre-existing trend. In contrast, increased inequality in the public charter sector is solely due to performance improvements at the 90th percentile and is limited to 4th grade. Charter achievement trends are generally positive, with 10th percentile scores increasing along with, and sometimes exceeding, 90th percentile score gains, thereby reducing the 90–10 achievement gap. The 90–10 student performance gap in the Catholic sector increased over the 20 years of our study period, driven by both increases at the 90th percentile and declines at the 10th percentile, much like the traditional public school sector. The Department of Defense (DoD) schools are positive outliers in our study. Student achievement in DoD schools was higher in 2024 than in 2005, at both the 90th and 10th percentiles, with little change in the performance gap. We discuss subgroup heterogeneities, outliers, and policy implications.