Most Utah students aren’t meeting state standards in math and science, according to newly released state testing data.
The Utah State Board of Education recently published statewide assessment results for the 2024–25 school year, revealing that only 42.5% of students overall are proficient in math and 48.6% in science.
As of Wednesday, statewide proficiency results for English language arts (ELA) weren’t yet available. However, the state has released those results for ninth and tenth graders, showing 48.4% are proficient in the subject.
Each spring, Utah students take one of two state assessments depending on their grade level. Grades 3-8 take the RISE (Readiness Improvement Success Empowerment) test, which assesses proficiency in English language arts, math and science — though third graders alone are not tested in science.
Students in grades 9 and 10 take a test called Utah Aspire Plus, which assesses the same subjects as RISE but is also used to prepare students for the ACT college entrance exam.
Although most Utah students aren’t meeting proficiency, overall, they are improving.
Compared with statewide results from the 2023–24 school year, Utah students generally held steady or improved their proficiency by at least 1 percentage point when examined by test and subject.
The most significant gains were made among Utah’s high schoolers.
In science, the percentage of ninth and tenth graders deemed proficient rose from 37.9% in 2023-24 to 42.1% last school year — a roughly 5 percentage point increase.
In English language arts, 2024-25 proficiency rates for those same grades saw a 6 percentage point increase, up from 42.2% in 2023-24.
Certain student groups continue to lag behind
Achievement gaps between Utah’s underperforming student groups and their peers remain wide, though, even as those individual groups showed overall improvement from the 2023–24 school year.
For instance, Black students’ proficiency rates were at least 20 percentage points lower than those of their white peers across all grades and subjects. However, in grades 9–10, Black students’ science proficiency increased from 13.7% to 19.8% last school year — a 6 percentage point increase.
By comparison, 48.9% of white students in the same grades were proficient in science last school year.
Utah’s Native American students remain among the lowest-performing groups, with proficiency rates lingering below 23% in every tested subject and grade.
Charter schools outperformed traditional school districts
Charter schools in Utah are public schools that operate outside of the public school system. For data purposes, they are treated like an individual school district.
When compared with districts overall, charter schools came out on top in both math and science.