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The improvements they have made are really impressive," Carr said.
The improvements they have made are really impressive," Carr said.
The Future of US Children Fall Further Behind in Reading, Make Little Improvement in Math on National ExamWASHINGTON, D.C. — America's children have continued to lose ground on reading skills in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and have made little improvement in math, according to the latest results of an exam known as the nation's report card.The findings are yet another setback for U.S. schools and reflect the myriad challenges that have upended education, from pandemic school closures to a youth mental health crisis and high rates of chronic absenteeism. The national exam results also show growing inequality: While the highest-performing students have started to regain lost ground, lower-performing students are falling further behind.Given every two years to a sample of America's children, the National Assessment of Educational Progress is considered one of the best gauges of the academic progress of the U.S. school system. The most recent exam was administered in early 2022 in every state, testing fourth- and eighth-grade students on math and reading."The news is not good," said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees the assessment. "We are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic."Among the few bright spots was an improvement in fourth-grade math, where the average score ticked up 2 points on a scale of 500. It's still 3 points lower than the 2019 pre-pandemic average, yet some states and districts made significant strides, including in Washington, D.C., where the average score increased 10 points.For the most part, however, American schools have not yet begun to make progress.The average math score for eighth-grade students was unchanged from 2022, while reading scores fell 2 points at both grade levels. One-third of eighth-grade students scored below "basic" in reading, more than ever in the history of the assessment.Students are considered below basic if they are missing fundamental skills. For example, eighth-grade students who scored below basic in reading were typically unable to make a simple inference about a character's motivation after reading a short story, and some were unable to identify that the word "industrious" means "to be hard working."Especially alarming to officials was the divide between higher- and lower-performing students, which has grown wider than ever. Students with the highest scores outperformed their peers from two years ago, making up some ground lost during the pandemic. But the lowest performers are scoring even lower, falling further behind.It was most pronounced in eighth-grade math: While the top 10% of students saw their scores increased by 5 points, the bottom 10% of students saw a decrease of 7 points.Republicans in Congress were quick to cast blame on Democrats and former President Joe Biden's administration.Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said the decline is "clearly a reflection of the education bureaucracy continuing to focus on woke policies rather than helping students learn and grow.""I'm thankful we have an administration that is looking to reverse course," he said in a reference to President Donald Trump.Compared with 2019 results, eighth-grade reading scores are now down 8 points. Reading scores are down 5 points in both grades. And in fourth-grade math, scores are down 3 points.Yet officials say there's reason to be optimistic. Carr highlighted improvement in Louisiana, where fourth-grade reading is now back above pre-pandemic levels, and in Alabama, which accomplished that feat in fourth-grade math.Carr was especially laudatory of Louisiana, where a campaign to improve reading proficiency resulted in both higher- and lower-performing students exceeding 2019 scores.
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