Third-grade reading: How does your district measure up?

The ability to read by the end of third grade is a critical skill for a child’s success — not only for the remainder of his or her K-12 journey and later educational outcomes but for future career opportunities, earnings potential, and economic mobility.

Statewide, third-grade reading proficiency has been steadily declining for a number of years. Data from the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment reports nearly 54 percent of third graders aren’t meeting grade-level reading benchmarks.

How does your district measure up? Are reading scores where they should be or is there room for improvement? Use the database below to see reading proficiency results from the 2024 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, students who do not take the test are excluded from the assessment results and do not impact a district’s MCA proficiency calculation.

Note: If you can’t find your district on the list, the student count was too small to report.

Test scores are not the only indicator of success, but they do play a role in evaluating learning because they are objective, standardized measures of student achievement on academic or proficiency standards and can place healthy pressure on schools, helping to identify which ones are struggling to meet the minimum academic expectations. It’s also an opportunity for districts to learn from each other on what’s working that perhaps can be replicated elsewhere.

Minnesota has recently overhauled the state’s approach to literacy instruction through the Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act, known as the READ Act, with the goal of having every Minnesota child reading at or above grade level every year, beginning in kindergarten. To help accomplish this goal, it requires teacher preparation programs and districts to use evidence-based reading instruction, but it will take time to see results from these changes, as the law is still being implemented.

While the shift in how reading is taught is a much needed and overdue step in the right direction, many have been sounding the alarm for years for such reform to occur. States like Mississippi decided to prioritize instruction based on the science of reading much sooner, and the state has outperformed Minnesota in a number of ways for years while spending far less to do so.

To aid student recovery, Gov. Tim Walz should opt Minnesota into the federal tax-credit scholarship provision. Public school students could use the scholarships to pay for tutoring and supplemental learning expenses.

Or perhaps a student needs a new learning environment to meet his or her education needs. With Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), Minnesota families could use the dollars allocated for their child’s education to cover pre-approved expenses such as tuition at another school, special education services, and even individual classes from a public school, to name a few. It’s an opportunity to fully customize a child’s education and meet individual students where they are at to ensure they are best set up for future success.

There are only so many years in a K-12 journey, and the kids can’t wait.