Louisiana is the only state in which public school students’ reading and math scores have risen above pre-pandemic levels after the state tightened its academic and behavioral standards.
The latest Education Scorecard from Harvard University, Stanford University and Dartmouth College ranked the Pelican State’s students first in reading growth and second in math growth among all states.
The scorecard estimated that Louisiana’s public school students improved by the equivalent of 0.29 grade levels in reading and 0.07 in math from 2019 to 2025. By comparison, students nationwide remained 0.45 grade levels behind in reading and 0.40 grade levels behind in math compared with 2019.
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The National Assessment of Educational Progress, a congressionally mandated math and reading exam, found that Louisiana improved from 49th in the nation in 2019 to 32nd on its most recent test in 2024. New Mexico ranked dead last in both years.
Louisiana led the country in fourth-grade literacy growth in 2022 and 2024, the last two assessments since the start of the pandemic. In math, the state gained 0.425 grade levels from 2022 to 2024, trailing only Tennessee’s 0.433 gain and just ahead of Delaware’s 0.422.
“Louisiana has done a real overhaul of its education system with several priorities that have made a huge difference,” said Jennifer Weber, an adjunct teacher-education professor at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
Ms. Weber, an education policy fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, praised her state for implementing early screening and mandatory tutoring.
She also noted that Louisiana publicly grades struggling schools. Those earning a D or below for three straight years receive a mandatory state intervention.
The Rand Corp., the Urban Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the trade publication Education Week have also tracked Louisiana’s rise from the bottom of the nation’s public schools.
All have praised the state as an outlier in a national landscape where literacy and numerical aptitude have either dipped or recovered slowly in most states since public schools shuttered for the pandemic.
Officials at Ignite Reading, which provides in-class early literacy tutoring to students in Louisiana’s De Soto Parish and Rapides Parish schools, said the state’s reading progress builds on a dozen years of pushing a rigorous phonics-based curriculum and requiring students to master it earlier than many other states.
“Reading scores were falling for years before the pandemic,” said Jessica Reid Sliwerski, Ignite Reading’s CEO and president. “The states pulling ahead treat kindergarten and first grade as the years that decide whether a child becomes a reader, rather than waiting until third grade, when the gap is already wide.”
Ms. Reid Sliwerski pointed to a 2021 state law requiring K-3 teachers and administrators to complete science-based training in how children learn to read.
State Superintendent of Schools Cade Brumley, who took over in 2020, noted that Louisiana reopened most public schools after a brief closure from that March to August. This set it apart from other states that continued remote learning for another year, fueling historic learning losses.
“We handled the pandemic better than most states,” Mr. Brumley said in a phone interview. “We prioritized daily, face-to-face instruction. For the most part, our kids in Louisiana were in school, and we stood up some early tutoring models.”
The superintendent has overseen several rapid changes to state education laws.
During the 2024-2025 school year, Louisiana required that all public schools ban student cellphones at least during class time. It also implemented a third-grade retention law that prevents students from advancing to the fourth grade without demonstrating the ability to read at an appropriate age level.
In August 2024, Louisiana enacted a new law allowing schools to expel students suspended three times in a year for behavior problems. It enacted an expansion of the law this year, recommending automatic two-month suspensions for students who assault a teacher.
In September, the College Board ranked Louisiana first in the country for growth in AP exam scores, as the share of students earning a qualifying score jumped from 37.4% in 2019 to 69.1% this year.
Meanwhile, public charter schools have surged over the past two decades, and the number of teachers has risen.
“We really believe in what we’re doing, and it’s a testament to families,” Mr. Brumley added. “Between summer school and tutoring, we get most kids where they need to be.”
Challenges have also emerged. In New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 displaced thousands of families and caused what was then the state’s largest public school system to collapse. The city rebuilt NOLA Public Schools into a smaller, all-charter system, which found that 30.8% of students were chronically absent last year.
Xavier University of Louisiana graduate Michael Olaiya, founder of the financial literacy platform WealthWise Kids, worked as a counselor and volunteer in New Orleans public schools from 2008 to 2012. He said he still prefers today’s standards to the pre-Katrina status quo of low expectations.
“The shift people are noticing now is not that Louisiana started caring,” Mr. Olaiya said in an email. “It’s that Louisiana started measuring early and acting on it.”
Uphill climb
The latest analysis of federal numbers from Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab shows that full-time staffing in Louisiana public schools grew by 13% after the pandemic began, from 79,742 in the 2018-2019 academic year to 90,388 in 2024-2025.
Among the 10,646 new hires, 9,723 were teachers. At the same time, statewide enrollment dropped by 6%, from 711,783 to 666,840 students.
By contrast, private schools and homeschooling programs have accepted a steady increase in students since the onset of the pandemic. A Johns Hopkins School of Education analysis estimates that homeschooling grew from 13,000 students in 2019 to a record high of more than 17,000 students in 2024-2025.
Some analysts say these concerns still do not outweigh the state’s remarkable improvement in testing.
“The results so far are worth celebrating,” said Patrick J. Wolf, an education reform professor at the University of Arkansas.
Yet Nad Hakam, founder and CEO of the continuing education company Learntastic, cautioned against reading too much into National Assessment of Educational Progress scores.
“I would not say the NAEP results prove that any single reform caused the gains,” Mr. Hakam said. “NAEP itself cautions against using its results to establish cause and effect.”
Critics note that chronic absenteeism, or the share of students missing at least 10% of the academic year, has also worsened. The Education Scorecard found 22% of Louisiana students were chronically absent last year, up from 18.8% in 2022.
Louisiana is not the only state touting improved test scores.
The Education Scorecard found that Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland and Minnesota also improved reading scores from 2022 to 2025 after implementing earlier literacy screenings. No states that skipped this policy change improved.
The scorecard also found Maryland experienced a significant drop in chronic absenteeism, from 31.1% of students in 2022 to 25.5% last year.
Maryland switched to a new standardized state exam after pandemic-related restrictions canceled the exam in spring 2020. The Old Line State is now transitioning to the Maryland System of Academic Readiness, which officials tout as a better way to measure updated math and reading standards approved in June.
“Maryland continues to show steady, year-over-year improvement in reading and math proficiency, reflecting focused instructional support and sustained recovery from pandemic-related learning loss,” said Cherie Duvall-Jones, spokeswoman for the Maryland State Department of Education.
Hooked on phonics
Conservatives have actively promoted Louisiana’s policy changes as a model for other states.
In 2024, the state added the conservative media platform PragerU as an optional K-12 classroom resource. Some Louisiana schools are now using their “Little American Readers” set of 24 phonics-based books and instructional videos.
Dating back to Colonial America and revived in the mid-20th century, phonics teaches children to sound out and decode unfamiliar words based on their letters. Some education experts have rejected the method as too rigid and old-fashioned.
“It’s no accident Louisiana’s students posted some of the strongest reading and math gains in the nation,” PragerU CEO Marissa Streit said in an email. “The fight for children is worthwhile.”
Conservative parental rights groups have also praised Louisiana for removing diversity, equity and inclusion lessons from classrooms.
“Louisiana changed its priorities and got back to the business of educating children,” said Kimberly Fletcher, president of Moms for America.
“Every hour spent advancing a political agenda is an hour unavailable for the learning they need,” Ms. Fletcher said. “Help them early when they struggle. That is what putting children first should mean.”
Melanie Kurdys, a Michigan-based board member of U.S. Parents Involved in Education, noted that reading scores improved in Mississippi after a 2013 state law required the use of phonics. Alabama and Louisiana reported improvements after enacting similar laws in 2019.
“Their success has been remarkable, especially when compared to higher-spending states,” said Ms. Kurdys. “Even though we knew how to teach kids to read, many ’experts’ introduced unproven methods that were adopted in colleges and schools across the country.”
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