The majority of students across Alaska and in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District (FNSBSD) are continuing to test below proficient in core subject areas. That’s according to student assessment results the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development released on Friday.
The rates are similar to last year, and years before. But the 2025 results do show very slight gains in the proportion of students meeting or exceeding proficiency in English language arts (ELA), math and science.
The scores come from the Alaska System of Academic Readiness (AK STAR), which the state began administering in 2022 in place of previous assessments.
AK STAR aims to evaluate student knowledge according to state academic standards. The annual assessment tests third through ninth graders in ELA and math; and a separate test, the Alaska Science Assessment, evaluates fifth, eighth and 10th graders in science each year.
Scores are broken down into four levels of achievement: advanced, proficient, approaching proficient and needs support.
Statewide, about 33% of students tested at or above proficient in ELA, 32% in math and 38% in science, according to the 2025 results. Those percentages each represent roughly 1% increases compared to last year.
FNSBSD scores also saw small improvements from 2024 to 2025, with about 1% to 2% more students scoring proficient or better in the assessments. Across all three subjects, the percentage of Fairbanks area students who met that bar is also slightly higher than the statewide averages.
In 2025, about 37% of Fairbanks area students tested at or above proficient in ELA, 33.5% in math and 43.5% in science.
Other statewide patterns captured in this year’s results are also reflected in the data for FNSBSD. For instance, locally and statewide, fifth graders performed the best in all three subject areas compared to the other grade levels. At about 48%, almost half of Fairbanks area fifth graders tested proficient or better in science, and more than 41% hit that bar for math and ELA.
Meanwhile, ninth grade math scores remain a low point in the data – both in Fairbanks and elsewhere in Alaska. Roughly 79% of Fairbanks area students in that category scored below proficient, according to this year’s results, which is about the same as last year.
Not every student takes part in the assessments. In FNSBSD, about 92% of students participated in the English and math tests, and about 88% in the science test.
School districts must distribute student reports to parents and educators by Oct. 3.