The 2026 NAEP math scores market asks one question with three answers: did the national eighth-grade math average on the Nation's Report Card rise significantly, fall significantly, or hold steady compared with 2024? Students tested between January 26 and March 20, 2026, results are due in early 2027, and roughly 66K contracts have traded on Kalshi. The live board above carries the current prices on all three outcomes.
The 2026 NAEP math scores market is a three-way bet on one number: whether the national average eighth-grade math score on the Nation's Report Card moved significantly up, significantly down, or not at all compared with the last assessment in 2024. Students sat the test between January 26 and March 20, 2026, and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has scheduled the math and reading results for early 2027. Until then, the board is a pure read on how traders expect a test nobody has seen scored to come out. Roughly 66K contracts have traded on Kalshi across the three outcomes.
The three outcomes are Significant increase, No significant difference and Significant decrease. They are mutually exclusive, and the word that matters is significant. Kalshi's contract settles on NAEP's own comparison against the last assessment year, so a one-point wobble that NAEP reports as not statistically significant pays the No significant difference contract, not the direction the raw number moved.
The 2024 results set the baseline. When NCES released them in January 2025, there was no notable change in the eighth-grade math average between 2022 and 2024, and eighth-grade math scores were 8 points below 2019. Fourth graders gained about 2 points from 2022, but this contract covers eighth grade only. In other words, the last reading on this exact measure was flat at a depressed level, which is the backdrop for a board that has priced flat as the single most likely outcome.
That ranking is recent. On October 5, 2026, Significant decrease led the board at 45%, with No significant difference at 33% and Significant increase at 27%. The order flipped on October 7, the busiest session in the 30-day window at about 1.2K contracts on the No significant difference leg, which closed that day at 53%. By October 9 the board had settled into the shape it has held since: No significant difference at 42% to 44%, Significant decrease at 33% to 37%, and Significant increase at 21% to 23% through November 3. Daily volume is thin, often under a few hundred contracts, so single orders can move a leg several points. The live board above carries the current prices.
The 2026 assessment is not a carbon copy of 2024. NCES has said the 2026 math and reading assessments are the first administered under new frameworks, the documents that guide which questions students answer. In math, students encounter more scenario-based tasks and questions built around the five NAEP mathematical practices. Most schools also had the option to run the test on their own devices if those met NAEP's technical specifications, instead of on NAEP-provided devices.
Those changes are why the release sits in early 2027. NCES is running a validation study to confirm that changes to scores reflect what students know and can do, rather than the device they used or the new framework. An estimated 600,000 students across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Department of Defense schools took the 2026 assessments. For traders, the framework and device changes are the new variable on top of the 2024 baseline: the board is pricing both student performance and how NCES carries the trend line across a redesigned test.
The contract expires on the sooner of the release of the 2026 data or one year after 2026 ends, which puts the latest possible expiration at 10:00 AM ET on December 31, 2027. Kalshi resolves the market the 10:00 AM ET following the data release, using the average US grade eight math performance published by NAEP on the Nation's Report Card. Revisions made after expiration do not count. NCES has said only that results are scheduled for early 2027 and has not published an exact date.
Kalshi lists a companion contract on 2026 eighth-grade reading scores that resolves off the same early 2027 NAEP release, so the two boards settle within the same window. Education policy runs through Washington, and the politics prediction markets carry the federal policy boards that set the stakes around national education data. The full slate of culture prediction markets holds the rest of the education and test-scores board.
Resolves on the average US grade eight student performance in math in 2026 as published by the National Assessment of Educational Progress on the Nation's Report Card. Each of the three outcomes pays Yes if the 2026 average score shows that change compared to the last assessment year (2024): Significant increase, No significant difference, or Significant decrease, as determined by NAEP's reported significance. The contract expires on the sooner of the release of the 2026 data or one year after 2026 ends (December 31, 2027), at 10:00 AM ET, and resolves the 10:00 AM ET following the data release. NCES has scheduled the 2026 math and reading results for early 2027. Revisions to the data made after expiration are not counted. Each contract pays $1 on the correct outcome and $0 otherwise. It trades on Kalshi as KXUSTESTSMATH-26.
The Kalshi board splits three ways between Significant increase, No significant difference and Significant decrease. From October 9 through November 3, 2026, No significant difference led at 42% to 44%, and the live board above shows current prices.
It resolves the 10:00 AM ET after NAEP releases the 2026 eighth-grade math results, which NCES has scheduled for early 2027. If no data is released, the contract expires on December 31, 2027.
It trades on Kalshi under the event ticker KXUSTESTSMATH-26, with roughly 66K contracts traded across the three outcomes. It is a Kalshi-only board on Prediction Genius.
As of November 4, 2026, No significant difference was the favorite at about 44% on Kalshi, ahead of Significant decrease at about 33% and Significant increase at about 23%.
Watch for NCES to set an exact early 2027 release date and for any detail on its validation study of the new math framework, since the contract settles on NAEP's significance call versus 2024.