Louisiana’s public schools have become a national talking point. Two straight rounds of gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), plus a record-high showing on the state’s own LEAP exam released this month, have officials calling the results historic. They’re not wrong. But look at what the Legislature did in the same breath: it just told thousands of families—many of whom applied for a way out of an underperforming public school—that the money isn’t there.
Those two facts belong in the same story, because they’re the same story.
The LEAP headline: a record, but still a minority
On July 6, 2026, the Louisiana Department of Education announced that 36% of students in grades 3-12 scored “Mastery” or above on this year’s LEAP exam — the highest mark since the test’s current format began, up two points from 2025. Mastery+ rates improved or held steady in 28 of 31 grade-and-subject combinations. Math ticked up a point in grades 3-8; social studies gained two points; and despite millions of dollars allocated to reading and early literacy interventions, English language arts held flat at 43% proficient for a third straight year.
The gains are real, but the base rate is easy to lose in the celebration. A 36% Mastery+ rate means close to two-thirds of Louisiana students in grades 3-12 are still not meeting the state’s proficiency bar that is set to be consistent with other states.
The national benchmark: a similar story, told differently
LEAP measures Louisiana against its own standards. NAEP — the “Nation’s Report Card” — is the only test that compares student achievement (based on a sample) across the country on a common scale, and it’s where Louisiana’s improvement has recently drawn the most attention.
On the 2024 NAEP, Louisiana’s 4th graders ranked 16th nationally in reading, up from the 40s in 2019 and 2022 — the state’s best-ever placement, and the only state to post 4th-grade reading scores above its 2019 level. In math, Louisiana’s 4th graders ranked in the high 30s, up from 44th in 2022 and 50th in 2019. Eighth grade showed the same improvement from a weaker base: reading rose to 29th nationally, math to 43rd.
Rankings describe relative movement, not absolute mastery:
- 4th grade reading: 32% of Louisiana students scored at or above “NAEP Proficient” in 2024, essentially flat from 28% in 2022, but up sharply from 17% in 1998.
- 8th grade reading: 27% proficient, unchanged from 2022, up from 17% in 1998.
- 8th grade math: 21% proficient, statistically similar to 19% in 2022, roughly double the 11% rate in 2000.
- Nationally, 31% of 4th graders and 33% of 8th graders scored proficient in reading in 2024; 39% of 4th graders and 27% of 8th graders did so in math.
Louisiana’s reading proficiency rate is now close to — and in some grades slightly ahead of — the national average, a real turnaround from a decade ago. But that’s a modest bar given that national scores have been sliding since the pandemic and often remain below 2019 levels. Louisiana’s climb in the rankings owes as much to other states stagnating as to its own students crossing an absolute mastery threshold.
Both tests point the same direction: Louisiana is improving faster than most of the country, especially in early-grade reading. Both also show most students still falling short: on LEAP, about 64% of students miss Mastery; on NAEP, over 70% of 8th graders miss Proficient in reading, and nearly 80% do in math. State Superintendent Cade Brumley has made this same point himself: the gains are real, but “we cannot be satisfied.” A national study released in May by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth ranked Louisiana first among states in reading growth and second in math growth since the pandemic, and identified it as the only state to have surpassed pre-pandemic achievement levels in both subjects. That’s a genuinely notable distinction. It does not mean the underlying proficiency gap is closed, only that Louisiana is closing it faster than its peers.
What the data mean for families, right now
Aggregate proficiency numbers are policy discourse. For individual parents, “36% Mastery+” means something blunter: there’s a real chance their child’s school isn’t getting them there, this year, in the classroom they’re sitting in today. That’s not a five-year problem. It’s a this-fall problem.
Louisiana’s answer to those parents is supposed to be the LA GATOR education scholarship account program, the educational option created by the Louisiana Legislature and Governor Jeff Landry in 2024 that lets families use state dollars for private school tuition, individual courses, curriculum, academic supports, and other approved educational items and services based on their individual needs. And this session, the Legislature’s answer to those parents was to once again do very little and leave thousands stranded and frustrated just a few months before school starts.
The House passed a budget preserving Governor Landry’s requested $87 million for GATOR. The Senate Finance Committee cut it to roughly $44 million — the same level as last year — enough to serve about 5,700 students, almost all of them “continuing” children who were already supported through a different school choice program prior to LA GATOR. Nearly 17,400 families applied for this cycle and were determined to be eligible. Most of them will get nothing. After two years of being excited and hopeful, applying, qualifying, waiting, and then finding out lawmakers failed to appropriate anywhere close to sufficient funding, families are left wondering if state leaders — most of whom ran as strong supporters of family-driven education decisions and school choice — are committed to delivering something other than an empty promise.
Put the two facts side by side. The state just posted its best-ever NAEP reading ranking and its highest-ever LEAP Mastery+ rate — real progress, worth real credit. In the same month, roughly two-thirds of Louisiana students still aren’t proficient by the state’s own measure, and the one program built to give families zoned to underperforming schools an exit ramp was capped at a level that turns away the overwhelming majority of this year’s applicants. Rising averages are cold comfort to a parent whose specific child is stuck on a waitlist in a school that isn’t working for them right now.
The bottom line
Louisiana’s rising national rankings reflect a real and unusual achievement, particularly in reading, where the state has out-improved nearly every other state over the past two NAEP cycles. But rankings measure relative position, and relative position can rise even while most students remain below grade level. Statewide averages will keep climbing slowly, year over year, and that’s worth applauding. But no parent educates an average — they educate a real, individual child who cannot wait for a decade-long trendline to catch up.
Louisiana has two levers for closing this gap: keep improving the system that serves the two-thirds who aren’t yet proficient, and fully fund the option that lets families leave a school that isn’t working today. The state has pulled the first lever seriously. It just refused, for another year, to pull the second one all the way. Heading into the next budget cycle, the Legislature has both the data and the receipts: record test-score gains that still leave most students short of proficient, and a family-driven educational option with nearly 17,400 eligible applicants and room for barely a third of them. Lawmakers shouldn’t get to celebrate the first number while ignoring the second. The next time LA GATOR’s funding comes up for a vote, that’s the standard it should be measured against — not whether the state can afford to fund every eligible family, but whether it can afford not to.
