Another NAEP Text Score Disappointment Learning loss for 13-year-olds has become entrenched.
“National Assessment of Educational Progress scores decline” is a familiar story; the last installment was in May, with a report that 8th-grade U.S. history test scores hit an all-time low. The latest dispiriting data from the Nation’s Report Card is more evidence that learning loss from public-school closures won’t be easily recovered.
NAEP scores for 13-year-olds declined by nine points in math and four in reading between the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported. The math decline is the largest ever for this NAEP assessment. For the lowest-performing students, math scores were the worst since the 1970s, and reading scores were lower than the first data collection in 1971.
“There are signs of risk for a generation of learners in the data we are releasing today and have released over the past year,” NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said.
In the rare silver-lining department, NCES reports that Catholic school scores “were not measurably different” between 2019-20 and 2022-23. The reasons for the difference can’t be proven, but Catholic schools reopened much faster while teachers unions kept public schools closed. The educational devastation of remote school is well documented, and it’s becoming clearer that this effect won’t dissipate merely because students are back in buildings.
“Getting back to normal, and having children learn at the same pace as they were before, will not result in students catching up,” said Tom Kane, a Harvard professor of education and economics who has researched pandemic effects on learning, in an email to us. “For the many districts where students lost a year of learning, students would have to learn 150 percent of what they would normally learn for two years in a row. That is simply not going to happen without additional learning time.”
But absenteeism remains high, NCES reports, with the share of students reporting five or more days of missed school in the last month doubling to 10% since 2020. Schools and students may be warier of illness, and remote school may also have hurt learning habits. National reporting shows “students feel disengaged from school and that COVID disruptions normalized the idea of not attending,” notes a recent Empire Center study finding persistent absenteeism in New York City schools.
Ms. Carr also cites “alarming changes in school climate.” NCES reported last year that 84% of public schools said student behavior worsened after Covid, citing incidents of student misconduct, rowdiness outside the classroom, and acts of disrespect. Classroom disruption hurts learning.
NAEP scores for 13-year-olds also declined between 2012 and 2020, and there are certainly longer-term trends at play. NCES reports that fewer students are frequently “reading for fun.” There are also fewer 13-year-olds taking algebra than in 2012 (a regression that San Francisco has insisted on as a matter of equity since 2014). But school closures have made it more difficult to overcome negative education trends, while entrenching new harmful behavior. No wonder more parents are looking for non-union-run schools.
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