Idaho Department of Education releases 2025 ISAT scores

Newly released data from the 2025 Idaho Standards Achievement Test shows Idaho students holding steady in proficiency rates in all three assessed areas.

Some grades and demographics saw gains, but overall scores remained mostly stable when compared to last year’s results.

The ISAT is administered each year in the spring and is designed to measure student achievement on Idaho content standards in math, English language arts and science. The ELA and math portions of the assessment are taken by students in grades three through eight and by those in grade 11. The science portion of the assessment is only administered to students in grades fifth, eighth and 11th grades.

“We want our students taking the most meaningful assessments, aligned with their future learning and post-graduation goals,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield said in a Tuesday news release. “Seeing Idaho students hold steady when it comes to this year’s assessment areas is both a source of confidence and a definite opportunity to look ahead to ensure that our students are prepared for their futures now and beyond K-12 education.”

Overall, proficiency results for the English language arts portion of the assessment remained about the same when compared to those from 2024, with 53.3% of test-takers scoring as proficient or better in 2024 and 53.2% in 2025. 

Students scoring in the advanced range of the proficient category saw a slight increase, with 23.2% scoring advanced in 2024 compared to 23.6% in 2025. 

Two student cohorts made gains of over 2% — fourth grade students scored 49.4% proficient in 2024 compared to 53.9% proficient as fifth grade students in 2025, and sixth grade students scored 52% proficient in 2024 compared to 55.6% proficient as seventh grade students in 2025.   

Math scores also remained comparable to 2024 results with 42.3% of students scoring as proficient in 2025 compared to 42.2% of students in the previous year. 

Grades four, five, six and eight all saw slight proficiency increases on this year’s scores and the percentage of students scoring in the advanced range increased from 20.3% in 2024 to 20.5% in 2025. 

The middle school math cohort also made gains, scoring 40% proficient when assessed as sixth grade students in 2024 and 42.8% proficient when assessed as seventh grade students in 2025.

For science, overall proficiency rates saw a small increase from 41.2% proficient in 2024 to 41.7% in 2025. Grades five and eight saw proficiency gains of 1.4%. As with English language arts and math, science scores saw a slight increase in students in the advanced range, with 9.6% scoring as advanced in 2024 and 9.7% scoring as advanced in 2025. 

Notable spots in this year’s ISAT scores also include gains made by individual student demographics, including proficiency increases in all assessed areas made by economically disadvantaged students, improved proficiency rates for military-connected students in math and a five-percentage-point proficiency increase in English language arts made by students in foster care.

“Continued focus on investing in areas that directly impact student achievement is our key goal,” Critchfield said.