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What we have is as close to an equal-opportunity problem as one can find in this country. Everyone’s test scores have plummeted.
On June 21, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a program that bills itself as “the Nation’s Report Card,” released its first set of findings since the pandemic’s start. The primary NAEP assessment, which is administered to fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders every two years and measures their proficiency in math and reading, showed the most significant drop in scores in the thirty-year history of the test.
Parents and policymakers inured to years of depressing headlines about learning disruptions in the wake of the pandemic might be tempted to shrug at the latest federal test data, on the achievement of 13-year-olds, as more of the same. This would be a colossal error.
A MAJOR CRASH
The new figures contain three terrifying findings:
- The magnitude of the achievement declines.
- The abysmal failure of ongoing recovery efforts.
- The likely persistence of these impacts on future students.
The new NAEP test score data is unusual because they put the results in the context of five decades’ worth of student performance. And the numbers are genuinely dire: In reading, average scores have declined to levels last seen in the 1970s, erasing decades of progress won through political blood, sweat, tears — and billions in public investments.
But the scores among the most disadvantaged students are even more shocking. Those in the bottom quarter of achievement are less proficient in reading than similar-aged peers were in 1971, posting the lowest scores ever recorded. The bottom 10 percent of students are back to their all-time low in math.
IT KEEPS WIDENING
Although racial breakdowns are not available for earlier years, the gap between black and white students has grown markedly over the past decade. Not only has average achievement posted a record decline, but the effects have been concentrated among the most at-risk students.
The latest scores are based on assessments administered between October and December 2022. That means the record-low achievement continued for nearly two years after most schools reopened for in-person learning — after two years of much-heralded summer schools, intensive tutoring, and other academic supports — despite nearly $200 billion in emergency federal education spending.
EMPTY SEATS
The NAEP data also shed new light on why learning losses are so difficult to reverse: record chronic absenteeism. A survey taken with the exam last fall showed that only 75 percent of 13-year-olds reported missing two or fewer days of school in the previous month, and the number of students absent for a week or more during that same period had doubled since the pandemic began.
Sharp drops in attendance were one of the earliest academic warning signs that emerged when schools reopened but were quickly dismissed. Initially, many blamed COVID-related illnesses. During the 2021-22 academic year, some pointed to quarantine rules that kept students home for two weeks following close contact with ill classmates. Yet neither factor can explain why attendance problems remain.
It seems clear that widespread absenteeism has become a new normal, perhaps reflecting well-meaning efforts among educators and administrators to show empathy during the pandemic, an erosion of social norms about the importance of attendance or persistence of bad habits — such as late-night gaming and sleeping late — that many kids likely developed during months of prolonged closures or virtual instruction.
The danger is that these norms continue among older students whose learning was disrupted and younger kids who have begun kindergarten over the past two years in a world where absenteeism is tolerated and overlooked.
WAKE UP NOW
In an ideal world, the data serves as an overdue wake-up call for adults whose interests and priorities in education policy over the past two years have shifted from academic recovery to culture wars.
But in a rational world, both sides would surely agree that these debates are of secondary importance to record-low literacy rates and the fact that nearly a third of 13-year-olds now report that they read for fun “never or hardly ever” — up sharply from a decade ago.
Unless adults are willing to call a truce in their culture wars and focus on getting students to read anything and to read better, we are unlikely to make much progress in reversing the achievement declines.
Sadly, there is no time to help the oldest students. Recent high school graduates and those who will graduate over the next several years are almost certainly the least prepared to enter the labor market or college in several generations.
Public policy must be prepared to deal with the consequences of our society’s collective failure to undo the damage.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Consulting. He can be reached by email at ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project.
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