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Alabama’s fourth graders leapt from the bottom rungs of the nation’s math and reading rankings, according to new test results released Monday.

Alabama has languished at the bottom of national educational rankings in recent years. But 2022 results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nation’s Report Card, which tests fourth and eighth graders in reading and math every other year, showed Alabama’s students kept a steady pace, holding their own in all areas except eighth grade math.

Holding steady meant a ride up the rankings ladder from last in the nation in math to 40th and 47th in fourth and eighth grade, respectively. That’s the highest ranking in math that either grade in Alabama has reached since all states began taking the NAEP in 2003. Reading ranks rose from 49th to 39th for fourth grade and hung tight at 49th in eighth grade.

Read more Ed Lab: Alabama schools aren’t ranked in last place anymore. What changed?

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State officials praised student, parent and teacher results Monday – and promised continued work.

“There is still much work ahead, but I am confident that our forward momentum will continue. The future of our state and world is entirely dependent on our students’ education,” Gov. Kay Ivey said.

Robin Lake, Director of the Center for Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University has led research efforts throughout the pandemic to document learning loss and push for student learning. She said it’s not enough to praise Alabama’s accomplishment over the past tests – but that officials must continue to push for change.

“What was normal before the pandemic was not good enough,” Lake said, referring to 2019 NAEP scores where Alabama ranked last in the nation in math.

Reactions in Alabama

Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement Monday praising the NAEP results.

“This year’s NAEP results confirm that Alabama’s focus on core learning like reading and math is working and that in-classroom instruction matters,” she said.

Ivey, like others, pointed to Alabama’s push to get kids back in school during the thick of the COVID pandemic as at least partly the reason for the success.

“It should not go unnoticed that while the rest of the nation dropped, Alabama bucked that trend by holding our own and making some progress,” she said. “That is undoubtedly because we pushed to get kids back in the classroom during the pandemic. I applaud our students, teachers and parents.”

Joe Morton, the former state superintendent who presided over K-12 education when Alabama’s fourth graders reached the national average in reading in 2011, is chairman of the Business Education Alliance and said educators and students should be proud of holding scores steady.

“When the nation as a whole slips and Alabama does not slip, that’s noteworthy,” Morton said. “It’s good news. It means that teachers, principals and all associated with education didn’t give up during COVID, and they kept working, and a lot of mommas and daddies did, too.”

Selling the benefits of locating a business in Alabama means showing business leaders the state can produce the workforce they need, he said. Morton said a small celebration is in order, but we can’t forget there are still a whole lot of states whose children are performing better than ours.

“I would not throw cold water on today,” he said, “when virtually every state went down, especially in fourth grade. Under the circumstances of the last two years, that is not bad news.”

“In fact, that is good news.”

Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, chairs the Alabama House Education Policy committee and has sponsored many pieces of legislation aimed at improving learning. Collins said she was pleased with Alabama’s NAEP results, but believes there is still work to do.

“It’s a good time to take advantage of moving up and then just continue to move in that direction,” she said. “I think some of the pieces that we’ve got in place with a focus on literacy and now a focus on math, that we’re going to see some of those same positives on our math scores.”

The state’s school superintendents association also highlighted the victory.

Read more: US, Alabama academic recovery from pandemic too slow, must accelerate, report says

“Alabama superintendents faced enormous obstacles for growth and still managed to make gains from 2019 to 2022,” Executive Director Ryan Hollingsworth said. “While other states lost ground during the pandemic, Alabama managed to maintain and even grow slightly in that same time under those same circumstances. Everyone wants to see Alabama move to the #1 position and I’m proud of the strides that schools across the state are making towards that goal.”

Tim McCartney chairs the Alabama Workforce Council and said today’s NAEP results and the move up the ranks bodes well for the state.

“I think it’s a good sign for Alabama that we will persevere through all kinds of troubles,” he told AL.com. “It certainly helps from the workforce side to help bring employers in to see that people that are running schools are serious about providing a good education program.”

And while the news was good, some said it’s not time to let our foot off the gas.

Read more: Alabama notches slight gains on state reading, math scores, ‘on the right trajectory’

Alabama Board of Education Vice President Wayne Reynolds, like Ivey, credited Alabama’s efforts to return to in-school instruction as soon as possible during the pandemic as a reason scores held steady.

“We in Alabama–the state board, the governor and others–reacted more appropriately to the concept of a pandemic for children than other school systems may have reacted,” he said.

National experts like National Center for Education Statistics Director Peggy Carr said it’s too early to draw any conclusions about the impact in-person or remote instruction may have had on individual states’ NAEP results.

“It’s just too complex to draw the straight line in the way that I think that people kind of want to do it,” Carr said.

Read more: 10 things to know about Alabama’s 2022 standardized test scores

“We have made multiple excuses about the NAEP data when we’re 52nd,” Reynolds said. “We must be very careful in taking acclamation because our ranking went up. As much as we were disclaiming being 52nd, we’ve got to be cautious about taking credit for the ranking increasing when our real responsibility is for student performance.”

The simple reason for Alabama’s rise in the rankings wasn’t because student performance statistically improved. It was because so many other states’ performance fell.

“There are kids in Alabama who need intensive intervention very quickly, this academic year before they graduate,” Lake said. “So for them, somebody’s got to be sprinting to help them.”

“And I think the trick for educators will be pacing themselves for the long haul, because, you know, the goal cannot just be to catch up. There’s much work ahead, but also acting with urgency for the kids who most need something now.”

The charts below show the percentage of students reaching each level of achievement set by NAEP. Below basic is the lowest level of achievement and is generally taken to mean below grade level.