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The four scores tell different stories.

• Average test score: The average test score indicates how well the average student in a school, district, or county performs on standardized tests. Importantly, many factors—both early in life and when children are in school—affect test performance. As a result, the average test scores in a school, district, county, or state reflect the total set of educational opportunities children have had from birth through middle school, including opportunities at home, in child-care and preschool programs, and among peers. Average test scores therefore reflect a mix of school quality and out-of-school educational opportunities.

• Learning rate: The learning rate indicates approximately how much students learn in each grade in a school, district, county, or state. Because most educational opportunities in grades 3–8 are provided by schools, the average learning rate largely reflects school quality.

• Trend in test scores: The trend in scores indicates how rapidly average test scores within a school, district, county, or state have changed over time. It reflects changes over time in the total set of educational opportunities (in and out of schools) available to children. For example, average scores might improve over time because the schools are improving and/or because more high-income families have moved into the community.

• Trend in learning rates: Trends in learning rates measure how much annual learning rates change over time. These are a better indicator of changes in school quality than trends in average test scores, which are influenced by a range of experiences outside of school.

For more information on how the average test score, trend in average test scores, learning rate, and trend in learning rates are computed, see the Methods page.