Between fall 2019 and 2022, national test scores sank four points in reading and nine points in math for 13-year-olds — the largest drop in math in half a century. And while scores have started to improve, researchers at the testing nonprofit NWEA estimated last summer that the average American eighth-grader would still need the equivalent of nine more months of schooling to catch up in math, compared with seven extra months in reading.
With a full academic recovery still out of reach — and the billions in pandemic relief that fueled attempts to catch kids up running out — educators worry they must turn things around fast, or else a big cohort of children will be ill-prepared for higher-level math courses, college and ultimately for the kinds of sought-after jobs in technology and science that could give them more financial stability and propel the economy.
Children missed the equivalent of a third of a grade level in reading and half a grade level in math between 2019 and 2022, according to experts from Harvard and Stanford universities who studied third- through eighth-graders in 30 states. (Students have since recovered some of the loss, they said.) But in districts including Kansas City, Kan., and Boston, losses in math were greater, according to researchers. Students in Fairfax County, the largest district in Virginia, were more than a year behind in 2023.
