The Nation’s Report Card shows a sharp drop in math scores and a decline in reading skills among 13-year-old students, marking the lowest levels in decades.
An analysis by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicates those changes impacted females more than males and also cut along racial lines. In the study of 8,700 teens, testing in the final quarter of 2022 found an overall four-point dip in reading scores and a nine-point drop in math scores compared to 2020.
On a 500-point scale, math scores for boys going into 2023 were down seven points, while girls tested 11 points lower in mathematics than in 2020. White students averaged a six-point drop in that category compared to Black kids, whose numbers dropped by 13 points. There showed to be a 42-point disparity in the math scores of Black and white students.
Average-performing 13-year-olds scored a 256 in reading and 271 in math, while lower-performing students experienced a more notable descent in reading scores. Low-income students of color appeared more likely to see their test numbers weaken.
The percentage of students who missed five or more days of school each month also doubled since 2020, the NAEP said. Kids who missed fewer days of school on average received higher marks.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the NAEP’s results reflect setbacks caused by COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and that it will “take years of effort and investment to reverse the damage,” according to NPR.
But the decline of U.S. math and reading scores didn’t begin and end with the pandemic. Math scores are reportedly down 14 points and reading scores lost seven points compared to a decade ago.
On Wednesday, the NAEP said math scores have “returned to levels last seen in 1978,” while reading scores are even “lower than when the assessment was first conducted in 1971.”
Cardona said there is a strategy in place to “address lost learning time and accelerate academic recovery.”
The NAEP, known as the Nation’s Report Card, is considered the nation’s most reliable form of comprehensive testing.