EDUCATION AUDIT: Nebraska Joins the Nation in Slumping K-12 Test Scores and Standards

Nationwide and in Nebraska, our educational system is at a crossroads. From lowering test scores and educational standards to the rise of technology and artificial intelligence (AI), schools have never been in a more precarious position.

This week, The Plains Sentinel is launching a new series titled Education Audit that will take a behind-the-scenes look at Nebraska’s educational system. The series will cover everything from teaching standards, test scores, and the rise of ideology in schools to the stewardship of tax dollars by administrators and the intersection of money, power, and politics affecting the future of Nebraska’s students.

Declining Test Scores

Test scores have been in a free fall across the nation, with the decline beginning even before the much-publicized drop from the COVID-19 pandemic. As Nat Malkus, a senior fellow in education policy for the American Enterprise Institute, put it in a recent New York Times article, America is in a “generation-long decline” academically.

Nebraska has not been immune to this drop. In fact, the state lags nationally.

According to data from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, Nebraska students are, on average, a fourth of a grade level behind their peers in other states. Put another way, a Nebraska student is learning about 7% less each grade than the average U.S. student.

Nebraska’s proficiency testing shows a similar story. According to the data, only 28% of the state’s fourth graders are proficient in reading and only 32% of eighth graders are proficient in math.

The scores come in contrast with messaging from powerful groups like the state’s teachers union that tell voters that Nebraska has “the best public schools in the nation” – a line that has been used in campaigns advocating for lawmakers to increase funds to public schools and oppose school choice programs.

Some Nebraska lawmakers are waking up to the data. In 2026, Governor Jim Pillen introduced a measure to hold third graders back a grade if they were not proficient. The bill sought to replicate a policy adopted by Mississippi that proponents say led to the “Mississippi Miracle” turnaround in student achievement in the state.

The bill was ultimately voted down, but lawmakers from both parties acknowledged that the state needs to investigate how to raise student scores.

Lowering Standards

Lower proficiency scores come on the backs of educational bureaucrats and testing agencies lowering teaching and testing standards for students.

One example of this nationally is the declining difficulty of the ACT. The ACT test is required for all Nebraska public school juniors.

Nexus Capital Management, which acquired the ACT in 2024, made significant changes to its test last year by shortening the exam, making its science section optional, and reducing math question answer choices from five options to four. Despite changes that critics say made the exam easier, Nebraska students only improved their test scores by a tenth of a point from 19.1 to 19.2. The test is scored on a 36 point scale.

Nebraska’s average score is below the national average score of 19.4, and has been in decline in recent years, down from an average score of 20 back in 2021. Additionally, less than 30% of Nebraska students are hitting the “ACT College Readiness Benchmarks” in math and science.

AI and Cheating

While not directly tied to the decline of proficiency and standards, the rise of AI has led to additional challenges for teachers, parents, and administrators. National surveys show that the majority of high school students are using AI to complete their homework and many of them are using AI to blatantly cheat.

A recent Pew survey of students found that “many teens think cheating with AI has become a regular feature of student life.” In conversations with The Plains Sentinel, Nebraska teachers told of rampant cheating in classrooms, including on the most mundane assignments.

Studies on the affects of AI on learning warn against losing a whole generation of kids that do not know how to critically think or write.

The Future of Education

Despite the well over $5 billion in yearly spending from federal, state, and local governments, many public school advocates say that the system has a “chronic underfunding” problem.

Nearly half of all property taxes in the state goes to funding the public school system. Over the lifetime of a student, taxpayers spend over $200,000 per pupil.

How to properly fund the state’s educational system while ensuring outcomes are being met is one of the biggest challenges facing Nebraska’s leaders.

Over the coming months, The Plains Sentinel will dive deeper to examine the policies and influences that are shaping the Nebraska’s education system. Ultimately, this series will strive to help inform Nebraskans about the myriad of issues facing the state’s education system and explore the solutions that lawmakers are proposing to improve outcomes for the next generation of Nebraska students.

If you are involved in the state’s education system and have information you believe would be relevant to our series, feel free to send a confidential tip to – plainssentinel@protonmail.com