5 takeaways: Salem-Keizer’s test scores show some progress, much work ahead
You can find almost any story you want in the latest round of student test scores for the Salem-Keizer School District.
There’s hard-won progress. There’s an overwhelming amount of work ahead to get more of the district’s 38,000 students on track. There’s improvement – at a frustratingly slow pace for many students, parents, taxpayers and educators. And there are large disparities between students along lines of income and race.
The Oregon Department of Education released scores from its spring tests in English reading and writing, science, and math last week.
The numbers are intended to give the public and policymakers one indicator of how schools are performing. Salem Reporter took a deeper look into the numbers to help you make sense of them.
Reading improved for the first time in years – barely
There’s no escaping the fact that most local students can’t read, write or do math at the level expected for their grade.
About three in four third graders were behind in reading in 2025. Scores have steadily worsened since testing resumed following the Covid pandemic in 2022.
But this year’s state tests show something new for the first time in three years: Progress.
From 2024 to 2025, about 65 more third graders met the state benchmark. Districtwide, 162 more students were reading at the level expected.
It’s a small share of the roughly 19,000 students who took the test. But district leaders said it’s a sign the efforts they’re undertaking to improve how teachers teach reading, closely monitor data and update classroom materials are starting to work.
In eighth grade math, a key indicator of high school readiness, 77% of students didn’t meet the state benchmark. The share meeting the standard improved slightly this year and last after a large drop in 2022.
Kids are catching up in reading, slowly
Another small but encouraging sign in the numbers: Students are catching up on reading as they move through the school system.
In 2024, 24.2% of third graders tested were reading at the level expected for their grade. In 2025, the same students – now fourth graders – improved three percentage points, with 27.4% showing proficiency.
That’s about 85 students in the Class of 2033 who were behind in 2024 and caught up last year.
Similar small gains emerged across each grade in the district, except for the transition from fifth to sixth grade.
That means schools are successful in taking some students who are behind and helping them learn more than a year’s worth of material in a school year. That is something educators say is key to improving.
Math didn’t show the same progress among elementary students. In 2025, fewer fourth graders were at the level expected for their grade than as third graders the year before. But middle school students showed math improvement in every grade – seventh graders in 2025 performed better than sixth graders in 2024, for example.
Scores vary widely based on poverty, race
While no group of students performed well on assessments, there is wide variation among student demographic groups.
Poverty was one of the starkest differences in test scores. Four in five students from families living in poverty were behind state benchmarks in reading. About 8,000 low-income students took the tests in the spring.
Students defined by the state as “not experiencing poverty” performed much better, with 41.2% at grade level. That’s among the 11,000 who took the tests.
Across all grades, more than half of Asian students and 45.5% of white students were reading at grade level – numbers far higher than the district average of 32%. Latino students, the second-largest demographic in the district, had 20.9% of students meeting reading targets.
Homeless students, those in foster care, migrant students and recent immigrants to the U.S. also posted numbers far lower than district averages.
There’s also a significant gender gap, with just 28.5% of boys meeting reading standards, compared to 36.2% of girls.
There’s no simple story for individual schools
Local elementary schools posted a large range of scores. Six elementary schools – all located in more affluent portions of West Salem, south Salem and Keizer – have more than half of their students reading at grade level. Those are Candalaria, Brush College, Clear Lake, Myers, Kalapuya and Morningside.
Another six, all schools with a majority Latino student body and a high share of students in poverty, had fewer than 15% of students reading at grade level. They are Auburn, Swegle, Eyre, Weddle, Washington and Hallman.
Improvement also varied among schools. Some schools with relatively high scores posted little change, while others made substantial gains.
Overall, 24 of the district’s 43 elementary schools improved the share of third graders reading at grade level from 2024 to 2025. Twenty schools improved the share of all students on track with reading.
There’s a long way to go
School district leaders say the results show the efforts to improve reading are starting to work. They’re optimistic that they’ll see more rapid progress as new training, class materials and other improvements take hold.
“We expect that we’re going to see the trajectory that we’re on now actually increase, and we’ll see even more students moving into proficiency and beyond, and our students who are already proficient continuing to grow into advanced levels,” said Danielle Neves, assistant superintendent for secondary schools, in a news conference last week.
Next fall, elementary schools will adopt new class materials for reading and writing – a step district leaders say is long overdue. Teachers and classroom assistants in elementary schools will also attend a three-day training in January about teaching kids to read, an effort administrators said is so important it’s worth canceling multiple days of school.
Salem Reporter took a deeper look in the spring at what’s happening in classrooms across the district to improve reading. Read that here.
What’s ahead
Salem Reporter is planning additional reporting of efforts to improve academic outcomes for local students. That includes listing ways the community can help students and schools, and a deeper look at one school, Highland Elementary, that’s making significant strides for students with some outside help.
Have other ideas or reporting you want to see? Email Managing Editor Rachel Alexander, who also covers our local schools, at [email protected].
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for over a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
