American children's scores take a troubling dip

The United States national exam results show growing inequality, with highest-performing students starting to regain lost ground and lower-performing students falling further behind. — Photo: Freepik

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 maths, according to the latest results of an exam known as the nation’s report card.

The findings are yet another setback for United States 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 US school system. The most recent exam was administered in early 2024 in every state, testing fourth- and eighth-grade students on maths 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.”

Social media and the rise of the screen-based childhood may have negative effect on kids' reading skills.

Among the few bright spots was an improvement in fourth grade maths, where the average score ticked up two points on a scale of 500. It’s still three points lower than the 2019 pre-pandemic average, yet some states and districts made significant strides, including in Washington DC, where the average score increased 10 points.

For the most part, however, American schools have not yet begun to make progress.

The average maths score for eighth grade students was unchanged from 2022, while reading scores fell two 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.”

Wider divide

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 maths: While the top 10% of students saw their scores increased by three points, the lowest 10% decreased by six points.

That could reflect investments by families in high-performing students' recovery from the pandemic. "Families that had the resources, they hired extra tutors, they got extra support to build on what was going on in the classroom," said Eric Mackey, superintendent of education in Alabama. "Families that either could not afford that or didn't have the opportunity or resources for that continued to struggle.”

The latest setbacks follow a historic post-pandemic backslide in 2022. In that year's exam, student achievement fell across both subjects and grade levels, in some cases by unprecedented levels.

This round of testing again featured students whose lives were disrupted by the pandemic. When Covid hit in 2020, the fourth graders were in kindergarten. The eighth graders were in fourth grade.

But Carr said poor results can no longer be blamed solely on the pandemic, warning the nation's education system faces "complex challenges.”

A survey done alongside the exam found in 2022 that fewer young students were reading for enjoyment, which is linked to lower reading scores. New survey results found students who are often absent from class – a persistent problem nationwide – are struggling the most.

The results provide fresh fuel for a national debate over the impact of pandemic school closures, though they're unlikely to add clarity. Some studies have found that longer closures led to bigger academic setbacks. Those slower to reopen were often in urban and Democratic-led areas, while more rural and Republican-led areas were quicker.

The new results don't show a "direct link” on the topic, Carr said, though she said students clearly do better when they're in school.

Among the states that saw reading scores fall in 2024 are Florida and Arizona, which were among the first to return to the classroom during the pandemic. Some big school systems that had longer closures made strides in fourth grade maths, including Los Angeles and New York City.

The success of big urban districts – 14 of which saw notable improvement in fourth-grade maths when the nation overall saw only minor gains – can be credited to academic recovery efforts funded by federal money, said Ray Hart, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools. Investing in efforts like intensive tutoring programmes and curriculum updates is "really proving to make a difference,” he said.

Other factors

Pandemic-era changes in childhood outside the classroom may have impacted scores as well.

"We should be looking at what social media and the rise of the screen-based childhood is doing for reading skills,” said Marty West, academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Parents should be reading with their kids, and listening to them read, Mackey said. "We are concerned that students are spending... too much time on the phone and not enough time reading books,” Mackey said.

Even in school, West pointed out, students are reading and writing less. A majority of eighth graders last year said their teachers asked them to write several sentences about reading assignments fewer than six times a year.

"There's no way around the fact that relationships, high-quality teachers and really engaging and high-expectation classrooms matter the most for kids,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

The US Education Department said the results are "heartbreaking” and reflect an education system that's failing students despite billions of dollars in annual funding and more than US$190bil (RM839bil) in federal pandemic relief.

"The Trump Administration is committed to reorienting our education system to fully empower states, to prioritise meaningful learning, and provide universal access to high-quality instruction,” the department said in a statement. "Change must happen, and it must happen now.”

Compared with 2019 results, eighth grade reading scores are now down eight points. Reading scores are down five points in both grades. And in fourth grade maths, scores are down three 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 maths.

Carr was especially laudatory of Louisiana, where a campaign to improve reading proficiency resulted in both higher- and lower-performing students exceeding 2019 scores.

She drew attention to the state's focus on the science of reading – a research-backed approach that focuses on teaching phonics, or the building blocks of words, as children build toward literacy. The concept has been credited for gains in some states.

"I would not say that hope is lost, and I would not say that we cannot turn this around,” Carr said. "It's been demonstrated that we can.” – AP