# CRLA Schools With No Struggling Readers: A Data Check 8,543 public schools report no struggling reader on the CRLA, close to the 7,490 expected when schools differ. A data check for data teams. This is the Markdown copy of [CRLA Schools With No Struggling Readers: A Data Check](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-schools-with-no-struggling-readers), an article on the NASH Reviewer Blog by Mark Anthony Llego, published Oct 27, 2026, updated Nov 4, 2026. Topics: Open data, DepEd data. NASH Reviewer is an independent practice platform not affiliated with DepEd, BHROD, or NEAP. Of the 38,679 public schools with end-of-year results in the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA) for SY 2025-26, 8,543 (22.1%) report no struggling reader at all. For the most part, that many CRLA schools with no struggling readers is no more than chance would produce. A model that lets schools differ, as real schools do, expects about 7,490 such schools, and the observed count is 1.14 times that: a modest excess. Schools reporting only struggling readers, the rare opposite case, number 29 against about 4 expected, and two other patterns can come from how results were entered. No pattern here proves an error and no school is named; each is a reason to look again at a record before it is used. ## Key findings - 8,543 of 38,679 public schools (22.1%), with 590,848 learners assessed between them, report no struggling reader at the end of SY 2025-26. - A model in which schools differ expects about 7,490 such schools, so the observed count is 1.14 times the expectation; a model in which every school in a region is alike would expect only 1,632. - The modest excess appears in every school-size band: the ratio of observed to expected is 1.1 among the smallest schools and 1.2 among the largest, and stays in that range in between. - By region the ratio runs from Region XI (0.97) to NCR (1.68), and 7 regions report more than a fifth more zeros than expected; NCR has 74 against 44 expected among 520 schools. - 29 schools report that every assessed learner is a struggling reader, against about 4 expected; the numbers are small, and each case is worth a check. - 275 schools with 20 or more learners assessed report every learner At Grade Level, 0.77% of schools that size. - 14,765 schools (49.8% of the schools compared) report identical Grade 2 Mother Tongue and Filipino results level by level, and 64.9% of them are Tagalog-language schools, where that is expected. ## CRLA schools with no struggling readers: how many and why The CRLA is a rapid reading assessment that teachers give in the early grades. It places each learner at one of five levels: Low Emerging, High Emerging, Developing, Transitioning and At Grade Level. A struggling reader is a learner at Low Emerging or High Emerging. Each learner is counted once, in Grade 1 Mother Tongue, Grade 2 Filipino or Grade 3 English. Nationally, 10.0% of the 5,127,670 learners counted this way are struggling readers, about one in 10. Against that national share, 8,543 schools, 22.1% of all schools with results, report none. Between them they assessed 590,848 learners. The number sounds large, but two ordinary facts about public schools make zeros common. The first is size. Many schools assess only a few learners across Grades 1–3, and 741 schools assessed fewer than 10 learners in all. When about one learner in 10 struggles, a school with a handful of learners will often have none purely by chance. A small scoop of beans from a jar where one bean in ten is red often contains no red bean; a large scoop almost always does. The second is that schools truly differ. Struggling readers are not spread evenly: some schools have many and some have very few, and the schools differ in their learners' home languages, attendance, teachers and communities. The series post on [CRLA variation by school, division and region](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-school-division-region-variation) shows how much of the difference lies between schools in the same division. A school whose true share is far below its region's average can honestly report zero, even with a fair number of learners. ## How many zeros chance would produce ### Two ways to estimate the expected number To judge whether 8,543 is a lot, the analysis compares it with the number a statistical model expects. Two models were used, and the contrast between them is the main lesson. The first, a binomial model, assumes that every school in a region has the same underlying share of struggling readers, equal to the region's overall share. Each school's count then differs only by the luck of which learners it happens to enroll. Under that assumption zeros should be rare outside very small schools, and the model expects only 1,632 schools with no struggling reader. The second, a beta-binomial model, keeps the same regional average but lets each school have its own true share, drawn from a spread of values around that average. The width of the spread is estimated from the data, separately in each region, so a region where schools differ a lot gets a wide spread. This model expects about 7,490 schools with no struggling reader. It is the fairer yardstick, because real schools are not alike. For each school, the model gives the chance of seeing zero struggling readers, given its region and the number of learners it assessed. Adding those chances over all schools gives the expected count. The ratio of observed to expected says how far the records depart from the model: a ratio of 1 means they match, and a ratio above 1 means more zeros than the model predicts. ### What the comparison shows The observed 8,543 is 1.14 times the beta-binomial expectation. Most of the zeros, in other words, are what a system of genuinely different schools would produce. The binomial figure of 1,632 is far below both, which shows that zeros on this scale are plausible only because schools differ. The excess that remains is modest and has several ordinary explanations. Some of it may come from the model, whose smooth spread of school shares need not match the real one exactly. Some may come from how results were recorded, for example if learners at the lowest levels were not assessed or not entered. And some of it will be schools whose learners genuinely read well. ### No struggling readers by school size The table splits schools into five bands by the number of learners assessed. For each band it gives the observed number of schools with no struggling reader, the number each model expects, and the same comparison for schools where every learner is a struggling reader. | Learners assessed | Schools | No struggling reader: observed | Expected (beta-binomial) | Expected (binomial) | All struggling: observed | Expected (beta-binomial) | |:--------------------|----------:|---------------------------------:|---------------------------:|----------------------:|---------------------------:|----------------------------:| | 1–9 | 741 | 544 | 489 | 427 | 6 | 1.8 | | 10–29 | 5,432 | 2,522 | 2,141 | 949 | 12 | 0.4 | | 30–99 | 18,691 | 4,181 | 3,706 | 256 | 9 | 1 | | 100–299 | 10,338 | 1,104 | 989 | 0 | 1 | 0.3 | | 300 or more | 3,477 | 192 | 164 | 0 | 1 | 0 | The pattern is much the same in every band. Among the smallest schools, those with fewer than 10 learners, 544 of 741 report no struggling reader against 489 expected, a ratio of 1.1. In the next band, 2,522 of 5,432 schools report none against 2,141 expected (1.2). The middle band is the largest group, with 18,691 schools, and has 4,181 zeros against 3,706 expected (1.1). Larger schools show the clearest contrast between the two models. In the band just below the largest schools, 1,104 of 10,338 report no struggling reader against 989 expected when schools differ (1.1), while the binomial model expects almost none. In the largest band, 192 of 3,477 schools report none against 164 expected (1.2). A zero in a large school is less likely to be luck, so these are the records a division data team would review first, alongside the school's earlier results. ![Bars of the number of schools reporting no struggling reader in five school-size bands, with the numbers expected by chance. In schools with 100 to 299 learners, 1,104 report none against about 989 expected when schools differ and 0 if they were alike; in all sizes together 8,543 report none against about 7,490 expected.](https://nash.com.ph/blog/_astro/crla-schools-no-struggling-readers-expected.B35tPOhx_Z1Fg7WJ.webp) *Figure 1. Schools reporting no struggling reader in each size band, with the numbers expected when schools differ (beta-binomial) and when every school in a region is alike (binomial). Chart: © 2026 Mark Anthony Llego, NASH Reviewer. [Download the full-resolution chart (PNG)](https://nash.com.ph/blog/charts/deped-data/crla-schools-no-struggling-readers-expected.png).* ### No struggling readers by region Because each region's model is fitted to its own schools, the ratio can be compared across regions. The table gives the observed and expected counts and their ratio for all 18 regions. | Region | Schools | No struggling reader: observed | Expected (beta-binomial) | Observed ÷ expected | |:------------|----------:|---------------------------------:|---------------------------:|----------------------:| | BARMM | 1,469 | 313 | 226 | 1.39 | | CAR | 1,500 | 784 | 715 | 1.1 | | Caraga | 1,706 | 313 | 302 | 1.03 | | MIMAROPA | 1,924 | 355 | 307 | 1.16 | | NCR | 520 | 74 | 44 | 1.68 | | NIR | 1,742 | 221 | 180 | 1.23 | | Region I | 2,409 | 505 | 401 | 1.26 | | Region II | 2,212 | 468 | 441 | 1.06 | | Region III | 3,024 | 573 | 539 | 1.06 | | Region IV-A | 2,754 | 425 | 374 | 1.14 | | Region IX | 2,310 | 431 | 380 | 1.14 | | Region V | 3,162 | 329 | 266 | 1.24 | | Region VI | 2,433 | 743 | 626 | 1.19 | | Region VII | 2,189 | 640 | 469 | 1.37 | | Region VIII | 3,656 | 1,476 | 1,419 | 1.04 | | Region X | 2,176 | 526 | 455 | 1.16 | | Region XI | 1,749 | 222 | 229 | 0.97 | | Region XII | 1,744 | 145 | 116 | 1.25 | The ratio runs from Region XI (0.97) to NCR (1.68). In 7 regions, schools report more than a fifth more zeros than the model expects, and Region XI is the one region with slightly fewer than expected. NCR stands out: 74 of its 520 schools (14.2%) report no struggling reader, against 44 expected. NCR has the lowest share of struggling readers of any region, 5.3%, but its schools are large, with 469,125 learners in 520 schools. A large school rarely reaches zero by chance, so the model expects few zeros there, and a small number of extra zeros moves the ratio a long way. A higher ratio is not a finding against a region. It says that the region's records include more zeros than its own spread of school results would predict, and that a short review of those records is worth the time. ![Dot plot of the ratio of observed to expected schools reporting no struggling reader, by region, under each region's fitted beta-binomial model. The ratio runs from 0.97 in Region XI to 1.68 in NCR.](https://nash.com.ph/blog/_astro/crla-zero-struggling-by-region.Bejc7H_J_g7PT4.webp) *Figure 2. The ratio of observed to expected schools with no struggling reader in each region, under each region's own beta-binomial model; a dot to the right of the dashed line means more zeros than expected. Chart: © 2026 Mark Anthony Llego, NASH Reviewer. [Download the full-resolution chart (PNG)](https://nash.com.ph/blog/charts/deped-data/crla-zero-struggling-by-region.png).* ## Schools reporting only struggling readers The opposite extreme is a school where every assessed learner is a struggling reader. 29 schools report this, against about 4 expected under the beta-binomial model. In relative terms the gap is larger than for zeros, but the numbers are small, and the size table shows that almost all of these schools are in the three smaller bands, where a few learners decide the result. There are genuine reasons a school might report this. It may serve learners whose home language differs from the language of the assessment, or it may have opened recently. There are also recording reasons: levels entered in the wrong columns, or start-of-year results entered as end-of-year results. Each of these schools is worth a short call from the division to confirm the record. If the result is genuine, it marks a school that needs reading support first. ## Other patterns to check: all At Grade Level and identical Grade 2 results ### Every learner At Grade Level A school with no struggling reader can still have learners at Developing or Transitioning. A stricter pattern is a school that reports every learner At Grade Level. Among schools with 20 or more learners assessed, 275 report this, 0.77% of schools that size. With that many learners a perfect result is possible but uncommon. These records deserve a second look at two things: whether every learner was assessed, and whether the levels were entered in the right columns. ### Identical Grade 2 Mother Tongue and Filipino results Grade 2 learners take the CRLA twice, in their mother tongue and in Filipino. The same learners can reasonably read at similar levels in both, but identical counts at all five levels are a stronger pattern. Among schools assessed in both languages with at least 10 learners in Grade 2 Mother Tongue, 14,765 schools (49.8%) report exactly the same number of learners at every level in both. Much of this is expected. Filipino is based on Tagalog, so where the school's mother tongue is Tagalog the two assessments are close to the same test, and identical results are natural. Tagalog-language schools account for 64.9% of the identical cases, and the region with the most is Region IV-A (2,189). Outside Tagalog-language schools, identical results are harder to explain. The mother tongue and Filipino are different languages, and a learner's level in one need not match the other. One possible explanation is that one block was copied into the other, or that learners were assessed in one language and the result was entered under both. RA 12027 of 2024 discontinued the mother tongue as the medium of instruction in Kindergarten to Grade 3 outside monolingual classes that meet the law's requirements, so some schools may no longer assess reading in the mother tongue separately. The comparison of the two Grade 2 results in [CRLA by Language](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-mother-tongue-filipino-english) depends on the two blocks being recorded separately, so this check matters there as well. ## What this means for school heads For most schools, a zero is good news and nothing more. The checks in this post are about records, and a school head is the person best placed to confirm a record before results leave the school. Three questions are worth asking before submission: - **Do the Grade 2 Mother Tongue and Filipino results look copied?** If your school's mother tongue is not Tagalog and the two blocks match level by level, confirm that both assessments were given and entered separately. - **Are the levels plausible for your school's context?** Compare them with last year's results and with the start-of-year CRLA. A class that had several Low Emerging learners at the start and none at the end may be right, but the teacher's records should show how those learners moved. - **Was every learner assessed?** Compare the number assessed with Grade 1–3 enrollment. Learners who were absent or left out are often the ones who need the most help, and leaving them out can produce a zero that does not describe the school. A genuine zero is worth knowing about too. A school with no struggling readers may have practices that neighboring schools can learn from. Before drawing that conclusion, [How to Read a School's CRLA Results Fairly](https://nash.com.ph/blog/how-to-read-school-crla-results) explains how to judge a result against the school's size, since a small school's zero says less than a large school's. ## How these numbers were made The data are the CRLA results at the end of SY 2025-26, as of 10 May 2026, from the [EDCOM II early-childhood (ECCD) dashboard](https://edcom2.gov.ph/eccddashboard/), for public schools, cleaned as described in [How the EDCOM Dashboard Data Was Cleaned](https://nash.com.ph/blog/edcom-eccd-dashboard-data-cleaned). Each learner is counted once (Grade 1 Mother Tongue, Grade 2 Filipino and Grade 3 English). Schools are grouped into the 18 regions of the Philippine Standard Geographic Code (PSGC), with Sulu in Region IX and the Negros Island Region (NIR) as its own region. A school counts as having no struggling reader when none of its assessed learners in those three blocks is at Low Emerging or High Emerging, and only schools with at least one learner assessed are included. For the expected counts, each region's model takes the region's pooled share of struggling readers as its average. It then estimates how widely school shares spread around that average by maximum likelihood, which picks the spread that makes the observed school counts most probable. The model gives every school its chance of reporting no struggling reader, and its chance of reporting only struggling readers, given its number of learners. Summing those chances by size band and by region gives the expected counts. The binomial comparison uses the same regional averages with no spread at all. The pattern checks are simple counts. The At Grade Level check counts schools with 20 or more learners assessed where the At Grade Level count equals the number assessed. The Grade 2 check covers schools assessed in both Grade 2 blocks with at least 10 learners in Grade 2 Mother Tongue, and flags a school when its counts match at all five levels. A school's language is its mother tongue as listed on the dashboard. ## Limits Expected counts depend on the model. The beta-binomial assumes that school shares within a region follow one smooth curve; if real shares bunch up near zero more than that curve allows, part of the excess belongs to the model rather than the records. The expected counts here carry no intervals, so small regional counts such as NCR's should be read loosely. A zero may be genuine. Nothing in these checks can tell a school with excellent early reading from a school whose records are incomplete; only the school's own records can. The same holds for schools reporting only struggling readers, every learner At Grade Level, or identical Grade 2 results. The dashboard has no learner-level data. The checks cannot see which learners were assessed, when or by whom, and cannot tell a learner who was skipped from one who was never enrolled. The results describe school records, not individual children. ## Frequently asked questions ### How many schools reported no struggling readers on the CRLA in SY 2025-26? 8,543 public schools, 22.1% of those with results, reported no learner at Low Emerging or High Emerging at the end of SY 2025-26. Together they assessed 590,848 learners. A model that allows schools to differ expects about 7,490 such schools, so most of these zeros are expected. ### Does a school with no struggling readers mean its CRLA data are wrong? No. Many schools are small and schools genuinely differ, so a large number of zeros is expected, and the observed count is 1.14 times the model's expectation. A zero is a reason to confirm the record, especially in a large school, not evidence of an error. ### Why are Grade 2 Mother Tongue and Filipino CRLA results identical in some schools? Where the mother tongue is Tagalog, the two assessments are very close, so identical results are natural; Tagalog-language schools make up 64.9% of the 14,765 identical cases. In other schools, identical results at every level are a reason to check whether both assessments were given and recorded separately. ### What is a beta-binomial model, in simple terms? It is a way of modeling counts, such as struggling readers in a school, when each school has its own underlying rate. Compared with a simple model in which every school is alike, it expects more schools at both extremes. That makes it a fairer yardstick for deciding whether a pattern like zero struggling readers is unusual. ### Which region has the most CRLA zeros compared with what is expected? The highest ratio of observed to expected is in NCR (1.68), where 74 schools report no struggling reader against 44 expected. The lowest is Region XI (0.97). A high ratio is a reason for a records review, not a judgment of the region. ## Download the data The cleaned EDCOM II dashboard data behind this series are free to download for personal study; to reuse them, email [support@nash.com.ph](mailto:support@nash.com.ph) for written permission first. [How the EDCOM Dashboard Data Was Cleaned](https://nash.com.ph/blog/edcom-eccd-dashboard-data-cleaned) explains every table and cleaning rule. The files are at data.nash.com.ph: start with the [README](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-data/v1/README.md), then the [school table with CRLA results and school inputs](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-data/v1/edcom_crla_2026.parquet) (Parquet), the [school estimates](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-data/v1/school_estimates.csv.gz) (CSV), the [division estimates](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-data/v1/division_estimates.csv) (CSV) and the [municipal table](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-data/v1/municipalities.csv) (CSV). The DepEd school files used for school inputs are described in [Download Cleaned DepEd School Data](https://nash.com.ph/blog/download-cleaned-deped-school-data). Every file, with its rows, columns and checksum, is listed on the [EDCOM II CRLA data page](https://nash.com.ph/edcom-data). To cite the data: Llego, M. A. (2026). *EDCOM II early-childhood dashboard data, cleaned, version 1*. NASH Reviewer. https://nash.com.ph/edcom-data ## More in this series - [CRLA End-of-Year Results SY 2025-26: All 18 Regions](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-end-of-year-results-sy-2025-2026) - [CRLA Start vs End of SY 2025-26 in the Same Schools](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-start-vs-end-of-year-sy-2025-2026) - [CRLA by Language: Mother Tongue, Filipino and English](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-mother-tongue-filipino-english) - [How to Read a School's CRLA Results Fairly](https://nash.com.ph/blog/how-to-read-school-crla-results) - [CRLA Variation: School, Division or Region?](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-school-division-region-variation) - [Where Struggling Readers Are Concentrated](https://nash.com.ph/blog/where-struggling-readers-are-concentrated) - [School Resources and CRLA Reading Results](https://nash.com.ph/blog/school-resources-and-crla-reading) - [CRLA Results in Schools With and Without a Principal](https://nash.com.ph/blog/schools-with-and-without-principal-crla) - [Action Research and Thesis Topics on Reading (CRLA)](https://nash.com.ph/blog/action-research-topics-reading-crla) - [CRLA Reading Hotspots: A Map of Struggling Readers](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-reading-hotspots-map) - [Stunting, Day Care Centers and Early Reading](https://nash.com.ph/blog/stunting-day-care-and-reading) - [Literacy and Nutrition Programs Compared With Need](https://nash.com.ph/blog/literacy-nutrition-programs-coverage) - [CRLA Schools With No Struggling Readers: A Data Check](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-schools-with-no-struggling-readers) - [How the EDCOM Dashboard Data Was Cleaned](https://nash.com.ph/blog/edcom-eccd-dashboard-data-cleaned) - Regional reports: [NCR](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-ncr), [CAR](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-car), [Region I](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-1-ilocos), [Region II](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-2-cagayan-valley), [Region III](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-3-central-luzon), [Region IV-A](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-4a-calabarzon), [MIMAROPA](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-mimaropa), [Region V](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-5-bicol), [Region VI](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-6-western-visayas), [NIR](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-negros-island-region), [Region VII](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-7-central-visayas), [Region VIII](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-8-eastern-visayas), [Region IX](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-9-zamboanga-peninsula), [Region X](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-10-northern-mindanao), [Region XI](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-11-davao), [Region XII](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-12-soccsksargen), [Caraga](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-region-13-caraga), [BARMM](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-barmm) - Earlier reports: [CRLA Results SY 2025-2026 (DepEd's selected-school file)](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026), [Do the Same DepEd Schools Lag on the ELLNA, NAT and CRLA?](https://nash.com.ph/blog/deped-schools-lag-ellna-nat-crla), [DepEd School Inputs vs Test Results](https://nash.com.ph/blog/deped-school-inputs-vs-test-results), [EDCOM II Final Report: Guide for Aspiring School Heads](https://nash.com.ph/blog/edcom-ii-final-report), [DepEd Data for Aspiring School Heads: Where to Start](https://nash.com.ph/blog/deped-data-aspiring-school-heads) *Analysis and charts by Mark Anthony Llego for NASH Reviewer. Data: EDCOM II early-childhood dashboard and Department of Education public datasets. NASH Reviewer is not affiliated with EDCOM II or DepEd. Charts may be reused only with written permission from support@nash.com.ph.* --- © 2026 Mark Anthony Llego, NASH Reviewer. All rights reserved. You may quote up to 100 words from this article with the author's name, its title and a link. In research, cite it as: Llego, M. A. (2026, October 27). *CRLA Schools With No Struggling Readers: A Data Check*. NASH Reviewer. https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-schools-with-no-struggling-readers. Any other reuse of the article, its charts or its data needs written permission: email support@nash.com.ph. Terms of Service: https://nash.com.ph/terms#website-content-and-data