Vermont's yardstick moved — The Middlesex Gazette

SchoolsVermont's yardstick moved<br>Washington Central runs seven to eleven points ahead of a Vermont average that has itself fallen behind the country. Read against the nation, the district's standing shrinks on most measures — and adjusted for the community it serves, its national test standing is now average.<br>MRBy Matt Rkiouak · July 12, 2026 · 17 min read

Washington Central's English scores run seven to eleven points ahead of the Vermont average. But that average has itself fallen behind the country. Set against the nation, the district's standing shrinks on most measures. Its test results have dropped nearly a grade level since 2013. Adjusted for the community it serves, its national test standing is now average. Its college continuation trails the national rate by nineteen points — and Vermont's count uses a more generous clock. Its attendance advantage is gone. Its spending, $30,402 a student, comes to $1.73 for every national dollar. Graduation is the exception: the district clears a national bar the state misses. In Vermont, though, what a diploma requires is decided district by district.

Every school comparison the Gazette has published measures Washington Central against Vermont — its peers, its state average, its own past. That is how Vermont talks about its schools, and it hides a variable: how Vermont itself is doing. Judging a district by the state average only works if the state average is standing still. It isn't. Once the country enters the comparison, most of what looks like strength in Washington Central is a lead over a state average that is itself losing ground to the country.

1 · The district in Vermont's frame: near the top of most tables

Start with the standings as the Gazette has reported them. Washington Central graduates 89% of its cohort in four years, fifth of 43 systems. Its English scores run seven to eleven points above the state average in every tested year since 2018 — fifth of 46 against demographic expectation, nine points above it. Its math, against the fifteen systems most like it, sits above the peer median — 45.1% proficient against 39.9%. Set against Vermont, the district's tests and diplomas are near the top of the tables.

The weaknesses in that story were trends, not standings: college continuation at 43.1%, behind every one of the thirteen close peers reporting; a senior-class decline among the steepest in the state; attendance fallen from fourth-best of 44 systems to nearly four points behind its peers. Strong where it stands, weak where it's headed — in Vermont's frame.

Vermont's own average, though, has been falling against the country for a decade. A state that sat near the top of the nation's report card in 2013 now runs no better than even on three of its four federal test measures. So "above the Vermont average" is a moving claim.

2 · How to read a Vermont district against the country

Two federal instruments make it possible. The first is the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the "Nation's Report Card." Every two years it tests a sample of fourth- and eighth-graders in math and reading, and it is the one test given the same way in every state. But it scores states, not districts. Vermont's entire student body is smaller than one big-city district the assessment does track. For districts there is Stanford's Education Data Archive. It takes each district's results on its own state's tests — math and English, grades 3 through 8 — and turns them into a single number on the NAEP scale. That number says how many grade levels the district's average student tests above or below a fixed national norm, averaged across those subjects and grades. One number per district per year means every district in the country lands on the same list — a Vermont supervisory union next to a district in Ohio. The archive's newest release, on July 10 of this year, covers tests through spring 2025. By its own coverage tables, it is the first to carry Vermont districts' post-pandemic years.

NAEP places the state; the Stanford scale places the district. The rest of this story runs both, side by side, on every measure that allows it.

3 · Tests: the state fell through the floor; the district fell nearly a grade level

The state first. A decade ago Vermont sat well above the national average on all four NAEP checks. At the peaks, the lead was 9 to 12 points — and a point is roughly a tenth of a grade level. In 2013, by the point estimates, only three states scored higher in grade-8 math. By 2024, three of the four leads were gone. Grade-4 math sat 2.5 points below the national average — a gap the federal snapshot calls statistically significant, with twenty-three states and jurisdictions measurably higher. Grade-4 reading sat about even (1.6 below), and grade-8 reading about even too (0.6 above) — after a seven-point fall between 2022 and 2024, a significant decline by the same measure. Only grade-8 math still held a lead...