National Study Shows Sharp Decline In Math And Reading Scores During Pandemic

The National Assessment of Educational Progress has released its first major report since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, assessing long-term trends in reading and math for a sample set of 14,800 9-year-old students from the winter of 2020 through the winter of 2022. The results demonstrate the immense impact of the pandemic on formative years of learning for schoolchildren throughout the country and indicate how far-reaching the pandemic’s detrimental effects on education will be.

The report saw a five point decrease in average reading scores, the most significant decrease in the last 30 years, and an unprecedented 7 point decrease in math scores. In addition, the report found that students in the bottom 10th percentile saw even sharper decreases, exacerbating gaps in performance between higher and lower scoring students.

The assessment notes that many of these disparities can be attributed to stark differences in access to educational resources for remote learning amongst different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. White students’ scores in both math and reading decreased by fewer points than those of their Black and Hispanic counterparts. This gap can be tied in part to a lack of funding and resources for school districts predominantly composed of students of color—an inequity that long predates the pandemic but that significantly increased during the last two years. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, growing inequalities in education across racial lines have become such a staple of the education system that President Biden highlighted the issue in his 2022 State of the Union address. Students in underserved school districts struggled in particular with staffing shortages and teacher absenteeism, causing ruptures in an already inconsistent learning environment.

These statistics not only reveal the state of education and educational equity in America today, but they should cause alarm regarding the landscape of higher education in the next decade. Lost learning in the formative years of a student’s core education in topics such as reading and math can render a student less likely to perform well later on. Studies consistently show a connection between education (particularly in a child’s formative years) and economic success later in life. In addition, the cost of higher education along with the increasing competitiveness of college admission places an even greater burden on students to perform from an early age in order to remain on the trajectory for admission after high school.

Interestingly, a Brookings report found that the immediate aftermath of school shutdowns in 2020 saw a slight increase in high school graduation rates, as teachers and parents strove to help students complete their high school experience and navigate the switch to remote schooling. However, the same study showed that while students were graduating, there was a 16% decrease in immediate college entry. If the NAEP report provides any indication, it seems that the significance of the pandemic for high school graduation and college enrollment will continue to be evident for at least another decade.

Since 2020, many colleges have attempted to address disparities in performance (particularly along racial and socioeconomic lines) resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. College admissions offices, including those of Ivy League institutions, temporarily or permanently adopted test-optional and test-blind policies, accepted pass/fail scoring, offered more online options, and took more critical inventories of the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic makeup of their student populations. However, the NAEP report signals that these inequities may persist for the next generation of college applicants, necessitating that changes in college admissions policies and testing requirements become a staple of American higher education in a post-pandemic world.

The NAEP’s report is a call to action for schools, communities, and institutions of higher learning. In order to remediate months of learning loss amongst the students who need it the most, students and school districts will need to rely on help outside of the classroom, the ability to combat staffing shortages, and an increase in funding. Colleges, too, should look at this data with an eye toward the future of college admissions and the landscape of campus communities. If we hope to mitigate the effects of educational inequality for the next decade, the work must start today.