You know the scenario: your district’s fall reading scores are down slightly from last year. Is this part of a broader trend or something specific to your schools?
Data without context can be hard to interpret. That’s why MAP® Growth™ norms exist. They help you understand where your students stand relative to national patterns. But norms, by design, provide a stable reference point. They’re updated every few years to reflect the most current patterns in student learning, but they don’t show what’s happening right now, this season, across the country.
The new MAP Growth National Dashboard fills that gap. Drawing on millions of MAP Growth assessments administered nationwide, it offers real-time insights into how achievement and growth are shifting nationally—giving you immediate context for the patterns you’re seeing locally.
Built from what partners told us they need
During our COVID recovery reporting, district leaders told us how valuable it was to compare their local trends against national data. Many wanted to know if they were recovering faster or slower than similar districts and if the trends they were seeing were unique to them or common across the country.
The dashboard provides an ongoing solution to that need. Instead of waiting for us to produce periodic reports, you can now see the data yourself, anytime you need it.
What you can explore
Partners can use the MAP Growth National Dashboard to investigate questions like:
- How are students performing nationally this year in reading and math?
- Are some grades showing stronger recovery than others?
- How do outcomes for students in high-poverty schools compare to national averages?
- What patterns are emerging in rural versus urban districts?
The dashboard also helps contextualize opportunity gaps. It can show whether patterns you observe locally mirror broader national trends or reflect something unique to your context.
How the dashboard and norms work together
The MAP Growth National Dashboard and norms are complementary tools. The norms provide the stable benchmarks you use to interpret individual student results. They’re the foundation for percentile rankings and growth projections, and they give you the consistent reference points essential for stable comparisons over time. The dashboard, on the other hand, adds a dynamic, current view of how national patterns are evolving across student groups, grades, and (where available) states. It shows you what’s happening right now across the country.
Key features of the MAP Growth National Dashboard
Beyond real-time achievement and growth trends, the dashboard includes:
- Proficiency projections for states with linking studies, connecting MAP Growth performance to state assessment benchmarks
- Group insights showing how national trends vary across student groups
- Recovery tracking anchored to pre-pandemic baselines, so you can see progress since 2019
What we’re seeing now: Fall 2025 snapshot
Alongside the dashboard launch, we’re releasing the fall 2025 trends snapshot. This is the first in a series of seasonal briefs highlighting key insights drawn directly from the dashboard.
This season’s findings: student achievement continues to lag behind pre-pandemic levels. While we’re seeing incremental progress in math, reading achievement remains stubbornly flat. These patterns emerge from the dashboard’s “Trends over time” tab, which tracks national recovery since 2019.
A living resource
The dashboard will be updated at the end of each testing season, with accompanying seasonal briefs that highlight emerging patterns. As we learn more about how educators use this resource, we’ll continue refining and expanding its capabilities to better serve your needs. In the interim, we encourage you to explore the MAP Growth National Dashboard and read the fall 2025 trends snapshot.
