2026 State Test Score Results Data Series
The 2026 State Test Score Results Data Series is published by the Education Data Center and is designed to provide updates on 2026 state assessment data.
What to expect: Our goal is to provide high-level insights on ELA and math state summative assessment outcomes for students in grades 3-8. We will publish overviews as State Education Agencies (SEAs) publicly release assessment results and/or as we receive aggregate results via public records requests.
For additional information about each state assessment, please see the end of this post. All available 2026 assessment data used for this data series will be published by the EDC in December.
Questions, comments, or suggestions? Let us know at info@eddatacenter.org!
Trends Over Time
Last week, the Utah State Board of Education (USBE) released 2026 RISE results for students in Grades 3-8 (in the results below, we do not include grades 9-10).
Before we dive in, here are two brief notes on the ELA & math assessments, for context!
A new ELA test in 2025: In Spring 2025, the state introduced a new ELA Reading assessment, aligned to the ELA Utah standards that USBE approved in 2023. The new test is scored on a new scale, deliberately built so that scores cannot be compared with the previous one. New cut scores defining proficiency were set at an August 2025 standard-setting workshop before being adopted by the Board in September 2025. When new cut scores are established, it creates a new baseline for looking at assessment trends. The math baseline has not changed over the past decade.
Grade 8 math: Beginning in 2019, math results for Grades 3-8 follow USBE’s definition, which includes students in Grade 8 who take the Secondary Math I course assessment in place of the Grade 8 math RISE assessment. This represents a (relatively) small group of about 3,500 students, but this does shift the overall Grade 3-8 proficiency rate up about half of a percentage point in math.
On to the results!
In 2026, Utah students showed gains in both ELA and math compared to 2025.
In the state press release, USBE describes the gains as “sustained, healthy progress rather than statistical noise, providing a strong indicator of systemic academic recovery statewide.”
ELA: Approximately 45.3% of students in grades 3-8 reached proficiency on the RISE, up from 43.2% in 2025. This included gains across all six tested grade levels, led by Grade 8 (+3.4pp) and Grade 5 (+2.7pp). Notably, ELA proficiency for students in Grades 3-8 rose in 36 of the state’s 41 public school districts.
Math: Approximately 45.4% of students in grades 3-8 reached proficiency on the RISE, up from 43.8% in 2025. All grade levels also improved in math, with a caveat for Grade 8: results on the standard 8th grade assessment did not change, while scores from 8th graders on the Secondary Math I assessment improved, which drew up the scores by +0.6pp. Math gains were led by Grade 3 (+2.2pp). Math proficiency for students in Grades 3-8 rose in 32 of 41 public school districts. We see a widening gender gap in math over the past decade, which has accelerated post-COVID: boys outperformed girls by 1.8 percentage points in 2016, compared to 7.3pp in 2026.
The majority of all school districts (76%, or 31/41) improved in both ELA and math. School districts Park City School District, Wasatch County School District, Cache County School District and Rich School District (about 240 students in grades 3-8) lead the state in both ELA and math performance in 2026. When looking at growth in percentage point gains compared to 2025, Rich School District (+8.0pp) and Juab School District (+5.8pp) lead in ELA, while Uintah School District (+6.5pp) and Rich School District (+6.4pp) lead in math.
Results by Achievement Level
A Closer Look at 2026
State Assessment Background
Assessment Name: Readiness Improvement Success Empowerment (RISE), 2019-2026; Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence (SAGE), 2016-2018
Additional Information:
General RISE assessment resources can be found here: https://www.schools.utah.gov/assessment/assessments/rise
RISE results are available here: https://www.schools.utah.gov/datastatistics/reports
The USBE 2026 press release can be found here: https://schools.utah.gov/publicrelations/_publicrelations_/_2026/USBENewsReleaseStatewideAssessmentsRecordHigh.pdf
Data presented here are specific to this state’s assessment and are not comparable to assessments administered by other states. For questions, please reach out to info@eddatacenter.org.
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