The , circulated through Brown University鈥檚 Annenberg Institute in January, examines the learning of American students attending traditional public schools, charters, Catholic academies, and schools operated by the Department of Defense. While disparities between high-flyers and their lower-performing counterparts have widened across the board, they grew the fastest in public and Catholic schools. 

Education leaders have warned of the trend toward increasing educational inequality for much of the last decade. During that time, each release of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress 鈥� a federally administered exam commonly referred to as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card 鈥� showed lower-scoring test takers falling further behind; typically, top-scoring participants were also pulling away from the pack. By the end of the COVID era, differences in outcomes that were large at the outset had ballooned even wider.

Patrick Wolf, an economist at the University of Arkansas and one of the paper鈥檚 co-authors, called his findings 鈥渄emoralizing,鈥� arguing that many American schools are clearly failing the students who most need their help.

“We expect and hope our public schools will be great equalizers and will reduce gaps between the top performers and the low performers, or the rich and the poor,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut over the last 20 years, we don’t see that in the data, and the gap has grown by a lot.”

鈥榃e were not being heard鈥�*

Wolf and his collaborators set out to measure what he referred to as the 鈥�90/10 gap鈥� 鈥� the difference in NAEP scores between students who score at the 90th percentile (i.e., those scoring higher than 89 percent of their counterparts across the country) and those at the 10th percentile (those outscored by 90 percent of other test takers). To do so, they measured performance data from 2005, the first year that charter schools participated in the test, through 2024.

In all, the research team gathered scores from six million test takers through 10 iterations of the exam, controlling for factors like students鈥� race or socioeconomic status, as well as the educational background of their parents. Each NAEP administration generates data for both fourth and eighth graders in the core subjects of math and English.

Their estimates show that the academic gaps grew fastest in public schools. In each of the two decades between 2005 and 2024, scores for fourth graders at the 90th percentile increased by about four points in math and three points in reading; 10th-percentile scores dropped by roughly three and five points, respectively, resulting in a net disparity that was seven points larger in both subjects. 

While those calculations are somewhat technical, the bottom line is much starker: The already-substantial gap between the most advanced and most challenged fourth graders expanded by 1.3 years鈥� worth of learning gains between the Bush administration and the Biden administration. For eighth graders, the gap grew by one-half year of learning in both subjects over the same time period.

Similar divergences, though of somewhat smaller magnitude, were found in Catholic schools, which enroll . During the period under study, the 90/10 gap grew by roughly 5 points per decade in fourth-grade math, six points in eighth-grade math, and four points in reading for both fourth and eighth graders.

Strikingly, the 90/10 gap for both sectors swelled even in the years preceding the pandemic. Those gaps, leading up to 2019, reflected both steady growth from children at the top of the heap, along with a lack of progress 鈥� and, in some cases, pre-COVID learning loss 鈥� from those at the bottom.

Peggy Carr is a former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, the research entity responsible for administering NAEP and reporting its results. Until February, when she was fired by the Trump administration along with most of the NCES staff, she regularly communicated with both politicians and the public about the meaning of the exam 鈥� the growth of the 90/10 gap and the persistently disappointing performance of children scoring at the 10th percentile.

In an interview with 社区黑料, she said the discourse around NAEP was too focused on scores at the average, which tend to conceal wider swings among students far above or below that point.  

“We were not being heard as clearly as we wanted to be,” Carr said. 鈥淲e were trying to make it very clear that you need to look at the entire distribution for years, but it wasn’t the focus of policy makers.”

DoD schools, charters

Notably, both charters and DoD-administered schools saw a much slower drift between high- and low-achieving students, much of which appears to have been triggered directly by the pandemic. 

In charter schools, the 90/10 gap grew by less than one point between 2005 and 2019 for fourth graders; for eighth graders, the gap actually shrunk during that period because students at the 10th percentile improved in performance faster than those at the 90th. The same narrowing was seen in fourth-grade math scores at DoD schools, where students across the spectrum made huge gains before the onset of COVID.

Tom Loveless, a veteran observer of K鈥�12 schools and former director of the Brookings Institution鈥檚 , called those results impressive, but noted that the lessons that can be drawn from the charter and DoD sectors were limited. Collectively, they account for only about 8 percent of America鈥檚 K鈥�12 students, and parents enrolling their children in them can differ dramatically from the public at large.

鈥淚f you work for the Defense Department, your employer is running the school,鈥� he observed. 鈥淵our superior officer can call you up and say, ‘Your kid is acting up,鈥� and something’s going to be done about it quickly.鈥�

Perhaps the most dispiriting part of the trend is that America鈥檚 90/10 gap exploded so visibly at the same time that achievement gaps 鈥� whether along racial, socioeconomic, or other lines 鈥� transfixed the education world. Educators, office holders, policy wonks, and activists all put academic disparities at the heart of their work during the years between the late-1990s and the mid-2010s.

For a large portion of the 鈥渆ducation reform鈥� era kicked off by the 2002 passage of the No Child Left Behind law, underperforming students did see significant progress, Wolf said. But the years since 2013 have been marked by a pronounced reversal of those gains.

鈥淏y definition, there will always be a gap between the students performing at the 90th percentile and students performing at the 10th percentile,鈥� he acknowledged. 鈥淏ut we don’t want it to be wide, and we don’t want it to be getting wider.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is known as the nation鈥檚 report card. But as more students leave public schools, the test risks becoming less representative of the nation鈥檚 students.

Unlike public schools, private schools aren鈥檛 required to participate in the test, which is administered every two years to a representative sample of roughly half a million American students. Not enough private school students take the test to report distinct results for that group, even at the national level. Home school students aren鈥檛 included at all.

This isn鈥檛 a new problem 鈥� the last time NAEP reported separate private school results was 2013. But as more students attend private school or home school with public money, the significance of the information gap will only grow, NAEP governing board members and independent researchers told Chalkbeat.

鈥淚 see it as the most significant challenge facing the NAEP program in the medium term,鈥� said Martin West, a Harvard University education professor and vice chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, 鈥渂ecause it threatens our ability to speak with confidence about states鈥� success in supporting student learning.鈥�

A dispute in Florida over the state鈥檚 2024 NAEP results hints at a future where more states question the validity of their scores and where comparisons among states are trickier. When results were released in early 2025, . Then-Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. wrote a that blamed the decline, in part, on excluding private school students.

鈥淭his issue only stands to grow, as Florida has chosen a path that puts students and families before teachers unions and provides universal school choice,鈥� Diaz wrote, before concluding with a call to 鈥渕ake NAEP great once again.鈥�

Observers said the increase in Florida鈥檚 private school enrollment between 2022 and 2024 simply wasn鈥檛 large enough to account for the decline, but state education officials remain concerned.

Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist who frequently works with NAEP data, said 鈥渨hat happened in Florida in 2024 is a harbinger of the future as private school enrollment grows. It will become increasingly plausible for states to say that our public school results aren鈥檛 representative of our achievement.鈥�

鈥淚f NAEP is the nation鈥檚 report card, then questions about private school achievement will become the dog that ate the homework,鈥� added Kane, who is not involved in administering the test. 鈥淚t will be a source of evasions and spin.鈥�

Low private school NAEP participation leaves information void

NAEP is considered , a no-stakes test that allows reliable comparisons over time and between states.

The put the test in the public spotlight in a new way, fueling competing calls for greater investment in public schools 鈥� or more pathways out of them.

Congress intended for public and private school students to take the test, but federal law only requires public schools to participate in the main NAEP reading and math tests administered to fourth and eighth grade students.

Private schools make up about a quarter of American schools and educate about 9% of K-12 students, according to recent federal data. But a much smaller share of private school students take NAEP. In 2024, they accounted for about 1.3% of students who took the main tests.

Low participation means that NAEP doesn鈥檛 have enough data from private school students to report separately on how they perform. State results only reflect public school students in those states.

That lack of information already complicates state-by-state comparisons. The shows private school students account for 15% of Wisconsin students and 13% of students in Florida, Louisiana, and New York, but just 2% of students in Utah and Wyoming.

Higher private school participation would allow their NAEP results to be reported separately at the national level and incorporated into state-level results. That could help answer questions about whether changes over time or differences between states are driven by the share of students in private school, West said.

It would take dramatically higher participation to report private school results separately at the state level. That鈥檚 not a high priority, West said, because NAEP data isn鈥檛 as useful for comparing the effectiveness of public and private schools.

Meanwhile, 1.2 million students participated in some sort of publicly funded school choice program in the 2024-25 school year, according to , an advocacy group.

That鈥檚 still less than 3% of K-12 public school enrollment, but the numbers have surged in the last few years and are expected to continue to grow.

Private school leaders have mixed feelings about NAEP

Catholic schools participate at much higher rates than other private schools, and their NAEP results are reported separately. Catholic school students also showed some declines during the pandemic, but they have continued to post higher average scores than public school students.

鈥淚鈥檓 not sure why people wouldn鈥檛 do it,鈥� said Steven Cheeseman, president and CEO of the National Catholic Education Association. 鈥淭he reality for us as Catholic schools is that we鈥檝e always felt like it鈥檚 an important accountability measure.鈥�

Michael Schuttloffel, executive director of the Council for American Private Education, said in an email that many private school leaders find the prospect of taking time out of the school day for a test that doesn鈥檛 directly benefit them 鈥渄aunting.鈥�

NAEP tries to by handling all the logistics. Officials hope a can find ways to reduce testing burden further and make results more useful.

Some private schools also may have a 鈥減hilosophical disposition against the idea of a standardized test 鈥� especially one administered by the federal government 鈥� being the principal measure of student learning or school success,鈥� Schuttloffel wrote.

Schuttloffel said he shares that perspective, but added: 鈥淣onetheless, knowing whether kids can read and do math is an important piece of the picture when we are trying to get our arms around what, and how well, our kids are learning.鈥�

Ron Reynolds, who represents non-public schools on NAEP鈥檚 governing board, believes private schools are not only 鈥渟hirking their responsibility鈥� but also missing 鈥渁 magnificent opportunity for private schools to tell their story writ large.鈥�

The leaders of private school organizations are , Reynolds said, but 鈥渢he challenge is delivering the message effectively to school site leadership and inducing buy-in at the site level.鈥�

A new calls for Congress to charge NAEP鈥檚 governing board with increasing participation across all school types. Reynolds said he would support making participation a condition of receiving money from . While he would prefer not to see a mandate, public money brings with it certain responsibilities.

But parents likely would object strongly to mandates as federal meddling, Schuttloffel said.

Rob Enlow, the president and CEO of EdChoice, has , but he sees less value in it for private schools. Parents and the public might learn more, he said, if those schools shared more data they already have.

If policymakers want more private school students to take NAEP, incentives such as automatic accreditation would be more appropriate than mandates, he said.

鈥淓veryone says they want apples-to-apples comparisons, but we鈥檝e had rotten apples for years and done nothing about it,鈥� Enlow said.

Ultimately, the case for participating in NAEP is to contribute to reliable information and good policymaking, West said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an appeal to the good of the nation or the quality of data we have for everyone,鈥� he said.

The 2026 test administration is currently underway and expected to wrap up later this month. are expected in early 2027.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Mississippi fourth graders鈥� average math scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress were higher than their peers in at least 18 other states and in 20 other states in reading 鈥� a dramatic rise from the state鈥檚 standing a decade ago.

Experts say the big gains in fourth grade reading were in large part due to the 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act, a state law that raised literacy standards and established a reading 鈥済ate,鈥� a test that third graders have to pass to advance to fourth grade. The legislation focused on reading, but math scores started rising around the same time. 

However, despite the state鈥檚 national standing, the proficiency rates are middling. Just 38% of fourth-graders were proficient in math in 2024, and 32% in reading. 

By middle school, those rates falter even further: 22% of Mississippi eighth graders  on the 2024 math national assessment. It鈥檚 an improvement from 9% in 2000, but still lower than the national average. In reading, 23% of Mississippi eighth graders scored at or above NAEP Proficient in 2024, which is slightly lower than pre-pandemic averages. That average is also lower than in .

This year, state leaders are trying to prevent that drop-off and sharpen their focus on math.

 would expand the state鈥檚 existing literacy act into higher grades and establish a math framework that would involve interventions similar to those that contributed to the state鈥檚 celebrated gains in reading. That framework would be Mississippi鈥檚 first statewide math initiative. (The bill鈥檚 original language, which was entirely replaced by the House Education Committee, would have required computer science courses for high schools.)

A portion of the bill dubbed the 鈥淢ississippi Math Act鈥� would establish Moving Mathematics in Mississippi (M3), a framework that would require supports such as math coaches in all schools, prioritizing grades 2-6, screeners and targeted interventions and establishing a cut-off score on the state鈥檚 fifth-grade math assessment to ensure students are ready to take algebra classes.

鈥淚 think our reading success is something people talk about because it鈥檚 been a national topic of conversation across the country,鈥� said Grace Breazeale, a K-12 researcher at policy advocacy organization Mississippi First. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not that math has necessarily been cast to the side over the past two decades 鈥� we have seen improvement 鈥� but there鈥檚 still a lot of room for improvement as well.鈥�

The math push, in particular, is in line with the Mississippi Department of Education鈥檚 shift toward economic development and workforce fortification. The department has recently reworked the standards by which schools are rated with a new focus on career and technical education. The state Board of Education approved the new accountability standards in November. 

Lawmakers say focusing on math will boost the state鈥檚 economy and pave the way for higher employment rates. 

鈥淲e鈥檝e got to change the culture in our schools,鈥� said Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford. She authored a Math Act bill in her chamber, but the House killed it. 鈥淚nstead of kids saying, 鈥業鈥檓 bad at math,鈥� they should be saying, 鈥業 can do this.鈥� When we change that, we鈥檙e going to change the jobs our kids are able to go into and the careers they choose.鈥�

Adapting the Alabama model for math gains

Boyd remembers what it was like to look down at a sheet of math problems, wrought with frustration. Decades later, Boyd said, that feeling returned when her daughter came home with math homework and asked her to help.

鈥溾�奍 don鈥檛 want a child to feel that way,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want any parent to feel that way.鈥�

That鈥檚 why Boyd has championed the math act in her chamber. 

The bill was drafted with direction from the Mississippi Department of Education and with an eye toward other states that have implemented similar acts. Alabama, in particular, was a model, Boyd said. 

Alabama established a math act in 2022 aimed at improving K-5 math proficiency through intensive student interventions and teacher training, among other things. Subsequently, Alabama  where average fourth grade math NAEP scores were higher in 2024 than in 2019. There was no significant change in average NAEP scores for Mississippi fourth graders.

Latrenda Knighten, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, has been watching Alabama鈥檚 progress closely. 

鈥淭hey were one of the first to make that commitment and stick to it, and you鈥檝e seen that incremental change,鈥� she said. 鈥淪low and steady wins the race. That is because they thought about what the students needed and what the teachers needed.鈥�

Mississippi Education Department officials say the act鈥檚 framework, Moving Mathematics in Mississippi, would build on work the department is already doing, and similarly to the 2013 literacy act, it鈥檚 centered around collecting data, identifying struggling students and coaching teachers.

The math efforts would be concentrated in grades 2-6, said Wendy Clemons, the agency鈥檚 chief academic officer. 

鈥淩eally focusing on those grades, we feel, will make a difference,鈥� she said. 鈥淥bviously our state made a very focused, laser-like investment in K-3 literacy. My belief is that much of our tremendous success has to do with that commitment.鈥�

The department already deploys coaches to the most vulnerable districts and schools and hosts a statewide math conference for educators, but teachers say they want and need more support, Clemons said. 

鈥淲e worked with the department really closely on this,鈥� said House Education Committee Vice Chairman Kent McCarty, a Republican from Hattiesburg. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e been implementing math coaches in districts throughout the state since 2023. We got a lot of data from them about where that鈥檚 worked, and we felt like the best thing we could do is expand on what they鈥檙e already doing.鈥�

The act won鈥檛 establish a 鈥済ate鈥� but it would put more focus on the fifth grade state math assessment. If students perform poorly on the test, parents would be notified, and an individualized plan would include specific steps to help that child improve their math proficiency. 

And there鈥檚 more to come. Lawmakers, including Boyd, say they鈥檇 like to see even more added to the bill, like more support for parents and more math training for education students.

On the right track for improving math instruction

Experts say there are some essential components to successfully teach math.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Knighten鈥檚 organization, identifies  that should be part of math education for teachers and students: conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning and productive disposition.

And the Mississippi Department of Education鈥檚 standards, which establish a roadmap for K-12 mathematics education, are based on the council鈥檚 standards. The agency allows districts to choose their own curriculum from seven selected 鈥渉igh-quality instructional materials.鈥�

There are also four cornerstones to math education in Mississippi, Clemons said. It needs to be cohesive, on grade level, data-driven and include standards-aligned lessons. 

During Mississippi鈥檚 literacy push, lawmakers had the same goal of establishing consistency across districts. 

鈥淲e picked this one way that science said works, and we went with it,鈥� Boyd said of literacy instruction. 鈥淭raining and everything was done with literacy coaches to really make sure we were teaching in one way. So when children moved from district to district, there was a consistency.鈥�

A big part of the math bill would be deploying more coaches to districts across the state to underscore the importance of the standards and applying them uniformly. 

鈥淲e haven鈥檛 had the investment in mathematics as we have in literacy,鈥� Clemons said. 鈥淲e just haven鈥檛 been able to say, 鈥楾his is what鈥檚 gonna make the difference. This will provide a lot more capacity, both at the state level and in the district levels, to provide that support to teachers and to students.鈥欌��

Knighten said Mississippi officials are on the right track.

鈥淢ath has always been a stepchild, for want of a better explanation. You hear people say they want to focus on math and reading, but when you look at the numbers, we spend more on literacy 鈥� so I鈥檓 excited to hear about what your state is doing.鈥�

Changing the culture around math

If state leaders want to see math gains, David Rock, dean of education at the University of Mississippi, recommends starting at the college level.

鈥淓veryone seemed to come together on literacy and did the training for pre-service teachers, and the results are there,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 want to see the same focus and passion on the math side.鈥�

After the 2013 literacy act, college education students were required to take more literacy education classes to graduate. The same needs to happen for math, Boyd said, to combat a culture of fear around math among students and teachers. 

It鈥檚 a self-perpetuating cycle: Students who aren鈥檛 confident in math don鈥檛 want to teach it. Fewer well-trained math teachers means fewer students who have a robust math education. 

鈥淚 realize there are people who have math anxiety,鈥� Rock said. 鈥淭o overcome that, we need to provide more training and opportunity to our pre-service teachers.鈥�

In addition to ramping up math training for teachers, some lawmakers are also interested in enshrining specific math standards in state law, establishing a math 鈥済ate鈥� and promoting a single curriculum for math instead of letting districts choose one.

鈥淲hat I鈥檝e heard from my body is they want more than what we鈥檝e just put in the act,鈥� Boyd said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a work in progress.鈥�

It鈥檚 important to get the bill right, she said 鈥� not only for the success of the state鈥檚 education system, but Mississippi as a whole. 

鈥淭here are so many jobs that are just not available to somebody if they don鈥檛 have a solid math background,鈥� Boyd said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to increase these math scores because it opens up a world of opportunity.鈥�

Policymakers in Washington are starting to pay attention. Last year, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon named 鈥淓vidence-Based Literacy鈥� as her No. 1 academic priority. And this month, the House Appropriations Committee held a on the science of reading.

So what role should the federal government play in reading policy?

Unfortunately, it鈥檚 not as simple as stealing the playbook from the best-performing states. The so-called 鈥溾�� states of Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama,and Louisiana have seen the biggest gains in recent years, and many states have tried to copy them with their own science of reading bills 鈥� to of success.

The federal government also has a record of big investments in reading not leading to improved outcomes. That鈥檚 at least partly because reading policy is tricky, given all the potential reasons a child may or may not understand the words on the page.

But that doesn鈥檛 mean federal leaders are helpless. They just need to find the right levers. Here are five potential ideas:

1. Create a new national reading panel

In 1997, Congress brought together a group of experts to 鈥渁ssess the status of research-based knowledge, including the effectiveness of various approaches to teaching children to read.鈥� After reviewing thousands of research articles, the group focused on five critical components of reading instruction 鈥� phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

The document that came out of that work, the , became a foundational text for the field. But it鈥檚 now decades old, and researchers know a lot more today than they did back then. It would be useful to have an update and a new consensus document from an esteemed body of experts.

2. Expand the National Assessment of Educational Progress

The NAEP exams have been instrumental in documenting the extent of students’ challenges, but they don’t say much about the underlying reasons why kids are having such reading comprehension problems.

For example, on , 46% of fourth graders couldn鈥檛 accurately understand the meaning of the word 鈥渃onform鈥� in a passage from the book The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. Was it because they didn鈥檛 understand the question, didn鈥檛 know the meaning of the word 鈥渃onform鈥� or got misled in some other way?

Reading researchers like Hugh Catts have been raising the that most reading comprehension exams are not well equipped to pinpoint the reasons behind a student鈥檚 literacy mistakes. NAEP could take the lead here by introducing other types of assessments that seek to unpack the root causes of reading struggles, and how they might differ across age groups. 

For example, young students might get a phonics check like the one England administers to its 6-year-olds. Older students might benefit from an age-appropriate version of this, as researchers have found that even middle and high school students can struggle with complex words.

3. Give states flexibility on English Language Arts assessments

Building on the point above, the federal government currently requires states to administer their own reading or language arts assessments annually in grades 3 to 8 and once in high school. Right now, the states have all interpreted that requirement to mean that they must give generic reading comprehension tests.

But states could be given flexibility to interpret this differently. Educators might gain better insights into students’ reading challenges if they were tested on discrete skills like decoding, fluency and vocabulary, and comprehension questions were left to specific content areas like social studies and science. Louisiana attempted something like this a few years ago, but the feds could give states much more leniency to pursue this line of inquiry.

4. Nudge states on accountability

Congressional leaders probably don鈥檛 have much appetite to rewrite the Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires states to draft goals for student achievement and plans for holding schools accountable. But those original state plans were written nearly a decade ago, and conditions have changed (for the worse) since then. The Department of Education can鈥檛 force states to revisit their plans if they don鈥檛 want to, but it could signal that it would be open to letting states amend them in light of the declines of the last decade, especially among the lowest-performing students.

5. Empower parents with information

Despite their best intentions, schools are not good at helping students who fall behind in reading catch up. According to the from Amplify鈥檚 DIBELS early literacy screener, just 49% of students who start kindergarten well behind in reading get on track by the end of third grade. And the odds get worse every year that schools wait. Last year, among third graders who were far behind at the beginning of the term, just 5% caught up by the end of the year.

Thanks to , parents already have access to their child鈥檚 education records, but only if they request them. To bring greater urgency to this issue, Congress could require schools to inform parents when their child is behind in reading and to work with families to develop specific improvement plans.

If reading scores are a crisis, policymakers should treat it accordingly. But they also have to be realistic in accepting that there鈥檚 only so much they can do, and that part of the decline in performance can be traced back to the fact that kids aren鈥檛 reading for pleasure as often as they used to 鈥� and are adults.

So one way to improve literacy scores is for education leaders at all levels to talk about the importance of reading. People who read a lot tend to know more about the world, and people who know more about the world tend to succeed in many aspects of life. That鈥檚 not exactly a policy change, but leadership can shape behavior to make knowledge 鈥� and reading 鈥� cool again. 

The following day, an Army helicopter collided with an airliner in the skies over Washington, D.C., killing 67 people 鈥� the first mass fatality aviation accident in the U.S. in nearly 16 years. The rarity of such disasters reflects aviation鈥檚 remarkable safety record: Flying at 30,000 feet is safer than driving or walking.  

What separates these two disasters is how differently aviation and education learn from failure. Here are three ideas education leaders can take from aviation.  

First, it’s important to create forums for deeply analyzing what went wrong. After every accident, the National Transportation Safety Board conducts prolonged investigations, extracting lessons that prevent future disasters. The NTSB begins by recognizing that complex failures have multiple causes, investigating aircraft design, crew procedures, air traffic control, routes and flight conditions. 

Six months after the D.C. crash, the NTSB issued an that stimulated in technology use, landing routes and rules for how aircraft separation is maintained. Last month, on the anniversary of the crash, detailed the accident chain, explaining what went wrong.  

Contrast this with Delaware, one of the 10 states that saw a steep drop in early reading scores. A from Gov. Matt Meyer and the state Department of Education lays out four priorities. The plan reasonably starts with 鈥渁ccess to grade-level instruction鈥� 鈥� but what鈥檚 missing is any public diagnosis about current obstacles fornstudents reading below grade level, or why the failure occurred for so many kids in the first place.聽

States and districts don鈥檛 need an entity as structured as the NTSB, but they would benefit from spending several months analyzing data and developing cases of student reading success and failure at each grade. Disseminating those cases would be a powerful learning tool for real improvement. 

Second, aviation benefits from a . Airline crews don’t have a rigid hierarchy; instead, junior pilots are trained to speak up during critical moments. Tools like pre-flight checklists create predictable ways to voice concerns without seeming insubordinate. A allows pilots to report concerns anonymously, without fear of punishment. 

Most school leaders struggle with this concept. Superintendents too often blame individual teachers for problems that stem from systemic issues. than veteran colleagues, in part because they find it difficult to ask for help and admit when they鈥檙e struggling.

Building cultures of safety in schools means regarding mistakes as part of innovation. , the ambitious reform using research-backed curricula in all elementary schools, showed slim results the first two years. The process demanded that teachers unlearn practices they thought had been good for kids and asked them to teach grade-level books for all students 鈥� a heavy lift.

Finally, last spring, scores jumped citywide. Two community school district superintendents, Cristine Vaughn and Roberto Padilla said they gave their teachers room to learn during this time. 鈥淲e tried to set the expectations that this is new for everybody and we鈥檙e not going to expect perfection right out of the gate,鈥� Vaughn told me in a research interview. Said Padilla, 鈥淏lame would hurt our progress and momentum. We don鈥檛 whip through a school evaluating principals and teachers for what they鈥檙e still learning.鈥�

Finally, school leaders need to think in systems. Root-cause analysis is an essential part of every airline accident investigation, digging beneath immediate and obvious causes. The NTSB maps any human error back to organizational and systemic precursors. 

The book describes schools as complex environments where many parts need to interact well with one another, but breakdowns can easily occur. It cites a decades-old effort to add instructional coaches in Los Angeles schools. Hundreds were hired in a few weeks, but no one mapped out the logic of how coaches would change teaching and learning within the larger system. Results in the schools with coaches were disappointing.

The 95,000 additional students now reading below Basic on NAEP would fill 500 Boeing 737s. What happened to them last year wasn鈥檛 fatal, but they鈥檝e experienced the educational equivalent of a sudden drop in cabin pressure. 

The question isn鈥檛 whether school systems can learn from failure 鈥� aviation proves they can. The question is whether superintendents, principals and teachers have the courage to look honestly at what went wrong, create conditions where everyone can speak up and trace problems to their systemic roots. The next wave of students is waiting for educators to decide.  

To make his case, Pondiscio relies on the skill level needed to achieve a proficient score or better on National Assessment of Educational Progress, a level that only 30% of tested students reached on 2024鈥檚 Grade 8 reading exam. Only 16% of Black students and 19% of Hispanics were proficient or more.

Yet naysayers argue that the NAEP standard is simply set too high and that NAEP鈥檚 sobering messages are inaccurate. There is no crisis, according to these naysayers.

So, who is right?

Well, of eighth graders from Kentucky indicates that it鈥檚 Pondiscio, not the naysayers, who has the right message about the NAEP proficiency score. And, Kentucky鈥檚 data show this holds true not just for NAEP reading, but for NAEP math, as well.

Kentucky offered a unique study opportunity. Starting in 2006, the Bluegrass State began testing all students in several grades with exams developed by the ACT, Inc. These tests include the ACT college entrance exam, which was administered to all 11^th grade public school students, and the EXPLORE test, which was given to all of Kentucky鈥檚 public school eighth graders.

Both the ACT and EXPLORE featured something unusual: 鈥淩eadiness Benchmark鈥� scores which ACT, Inc. developed by comparing its test scores to actual college freshman grades years later. Students reaching the benchmark scores for reading or math had at least a 75% chance to later earn a 鈥淐鈥� or better in related college freshman courses.

So, how did the comparisons between Kentucky鈥檚 benchmark score performance and the NAEP work out?

 Analysis found close agreement between the NAEP proficiency rates and the share of the same cohorts of students reaching EXPLORE鈥檚 readiness benchmarks. 鈥�

For example, in Grade 8 reading, EXPLORE benchmark performance and NAEP proficiency rates for the same cohorts of students never varied by more than four percentage points for testing in 2008-09, 2010-11, 2012-13 or 2014-15.

The same, close agreement was found in the comparison of NAEP grade 8 math proficiency rates to the EXPLORE math benchmark percentages. 

EXPLORE to NAEP results were also examined separately for white, Black and learning-disabled students. Regardless of the student group, the EXPLORE鈥檚 readiness benchmark percentages and NAEP鈥檚 proficient or above statistics agreed closely.

Doing an analysis with Kentucky鈥檚 ACT college entrance results test was a bit more challenging because NAEP doesn鈥檛 provide state test data for high school grades. However, it is possible to compare each student cohort鈥檚 Grade 8 NAEP performance to that cohort鈥檚 ACT benchmark score results posted four years later when they graduated from high school. Data for graduating classes in 2017, 2019 and 2021 uniformly show close agreement for overall average scores, as well as for separate student group scores.

It鈥檚 worth noting that all NAEP scores have statistical sampling errors. After those plus and minus errors are considered, the agreements between the NAEP and the EXPLORE and ACT test results look even better.

The bottom line is: Close agreement between NAEP proficiency rates and ACT benchmark score results for Kentucky suggests that NAEP proficiency levels are highly relevant indicators of critical educational performance. 鈥婽hose claiming NAEP鈥檚 proficiency standard is set too high are incorrect.

That leaves us with the realization that overall performance of public school students in Kentucky and nationwide is very concerning. Many students do not have the reading and math skills needed to navigate modern life. Instead of simply rejecting the troubling results of the latest round of NAEP, education leaders need to double down on building key skills among all students.

Do we really need to worry about elementary and secondary schools anyway? They can simply get tossed into the Department of Labor. Those who work on special education? Plop them over there in Health and Human Services. 

In this vision of dismemberment, the word 鈥渆ducation鈥� is scrubbed from any U.S.-led effort to improve our country. The concept of teaching and learning is not important enough to garner federal attention anymore. 

Instead, it鈥檚 about kids envisioned as workers, with a little bit of health care sprinkled in to make sure their bodies can do the work needed once they grow into adults. This not only acts against Congressional will and statute, it is disastrous for America鈥檚 competitiveness and our standing in the world. It is disrespectful to America鈥檚 families. And it is catastrophic for our kids and the generation behind them.

Today鈥檚 students are facing a future that demands new wells of knowledge, skills and ingenuity to address the unknowns of an AI-infused and climate-changed world. Today鈥檚 parents worry that their children will never get the education they need to compete with AI, get good jobs and feel fulfilled in their work. Many of today鈥檚 teachers are coping with classrooms of children experiencing fear and trauma while also under pressure to use new technologies and become AI-literate as soon as possible.

Take reading. We have all heard how so many of today鈥檚 children are struggling to achieve proficiency in reading, as scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are in troubling decline. In an AI-driven world, schools need to help students overcome these reading challenges and build traditional literacy skills and powers of comprehension. And they need to help students acquire digital literacy skills so they can not only read what ChatGPT spits out but also know how to vet it. 

This is a combination that only comes with well-prepared teachers given training and resources to support students at different levels, with different needs. This is not about sitting kids at a desk and telling them to read 鈥淗op on Pop鈥� so they someday can read instructions for a low-wage job. 

To say that states can do it all on their own is folly. Imagine 50 states with 50 different agencies, many of which are held together by small numbers of people, all trying to manage thousands of school districts without guidance. District and state leaders need and want help to apply best practices for funding early literacy specialists in districts, helping English learners read and respond to complex texts, responding to parent inquiries and protecting students鈥� rights. 

There are now decades of scientific research 鈥� much of it led by great American minds 鈥� on what it takes to build school, home and informal learning environments that engage kids and spark learning. Educators are eager to learn effective strategies for stimulating the deeper thinking that comes with a quality education and is needed to succeed in a complicated world. Other countries, from China to Germany to Paraguay, are using that research on effective teaching and learning to equip their young people for the challenges ahead. The U.S. should be leading in education, not ceding ground.

The materials distributed in the Department of Education鈥檚 Tuesday talk about 鈥渋nteragency agreements鈥� as if this is as easy as moving someone to a new cubicle. The truth is anything but, and the cost and inefficiencies across funding streams, accountability and new workloads are easy to see. 

It is not hard to predict chaos and confusion for the next several years as government officials try to figure out how these interagency agreements will work. That is time that should be used instead to strengthen our education system and help states and localities with all the guidance and assistance and funding they need. That is time to ensure that we aren鈥檛 leaving out students who may happen to have a disability, who have been discriminated against, or who happen to live in a low-income school district. 

Think about it: Do we really want to be a country without a Department of Education in the 21st century?

These scores are not just numbers; they signal lost earning potential for today鈥檚 children and weakened competitiveness for tomorrow鈥檚 workforce. The pandemic deepened the decline, but students were already behind. Without action, the cost will be measured in lost opportunity and billions in economic losses.

from Stanford shows losses in student achievement before and after the pandemic equal those during the pandemic, and that the losses are continuing. The study found restoring student achievement to 2013 levels would raise the lifetime earnings of today鈥檚 average student by an estimated 8% 鈥� producing dramatic and sustained gains for our nation鈥檚 economy.

For our kids to be more financially successful as they age into the workforce, schools have to reverse NAEP declines over the past decade. There鈥檚 no time to spare.

This year鈥檚 NAEP proficiency results for public school students show reading scores have reached their , with only 29% of eighth graders and 30% of fourth graders achieving a proficient score. While the slide in has slowed, scores still remain below pre-pandemic levels, and the performance gap between high- and low-performing students has .

Lower performances by today鈥檚 students mean a down the road; proficiency in literacy and numeracy has been linked to several , including more fruitful college opportunities and higher wage jobs.

The research from Stanford estimates learning loss over the past decade has cost our country over . This translates into having an average of 6% higher GDP every year for the rest of this century if students were still at 2013 NAEP proficiency levels.

At the individual level, the average current student can expect to have a lifetime income that is 8% below that of a 2013 graduate. Because disadvantaged students have suffered deeper learning losses, their incomes can be expected to fall by over 10%.   

For our students to earn more 鈥� and be able to compete with their peers worldwide 鈥� educators can鈥檛 leave their outcomes to guesswork. Schools need to ensure students are learning the fundamentals using evidence-backed methods 鈥� and constantly and consistently measure their progress using clear, objective standards.

Some states made noteworthy progress on NAEP this year: Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. Each has a track record of high expectations and strong accountability.

These states use an that puts reading and math achievement front and center. They measure what matters 鈥� proficiency and growth 鈥� and they report results in a way families and educators can understand. Transparency and rigor are fueling their progress.

It has been very difficult to implement effective large-scale reforms, but we now have examples of getting strong increases in literacy and mathematical proficiency when evidence-based policy solutions are implemented faithfully. For example, states are seeing academic growth using the following three approaches.

First, states need to invest in effective personnel. They can do this by and by supporting strong teaching through professional development in evidence-based practices such as use of high-quality instructional materials and assessment data to inform instruction. Further, hiring of math and has shown success.

Using data from and , which are short assessments to flag struggling students early, has helped ensure schools are using necessary interventions with high quality instructional materials. While many successful states mandate the use of screeners, others can incentivize districts to use them by providing the materials for free.

Finally, Alabama has shown that it is possible to begin turning around the math problem. Two years after passing the , Alabama has returned to for fourth grade NAEP math, jumping from last in the nation in 2019 to 31^st this year. This comprehensive math law includes such as elementary school math coaches; increasing the amount of math instruction per day to 60+ minutes; and the adoption of high-quality instructional materials.

Students aren鈥檛 going to catch up if states don鈥檛 make their progress a priority. Some states are leading the way, but more policymakers need to focus on improving student outcomes using tested methods that raise the bar and measure progress. The nation鈥檚 collective economic future depends on rewarding effective schools and reversing the achievement slides of the past dozen years.

Responding to lawsuits filed after the administration鈥檚 Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, canceled more than 100 key research contracts in February, the department in June said it planned to reinstate 20 of the contracts. And a lawsuit will give a short reprieve to 10 federally funded . The department is also asking the public for guidance on how it can modernize the Institute of Education Sciences, its research, evaluation and statistics arm. 

鈥淭hey’re not saying in any explicit way, but you see this 鈥榖uild-back,鈥欌�� said a longtime assessment professional familiar with IES, who asked not to be named to preserve professional relationships.

The department likely realized that, despite the DOGE cuts, IES still had a lot of congressionally mandated work to do. 鈥淚 think there were some 鈥極h shit!鈥� moments, but nobody would say that, because they’re not going to criticize DOGE or the president.鈥�

, executive director of the American Educational Research Association, called the developments 鈥渃autiously encouraging,鈥� noting also that NCES plans updates to several surveys and administrative data collections. And it鈥檚 releasing existing surveys such as , which analyze data each year from all U.S. colleges and universities that receive federal financial aid.

鈥淥n a scale of 1 to 10 鈥� where IES was at 10 prior to the DOGE cuts and 1 a month ago 鈥� we would place it at 3 or 4 today,鈥� said Chavous. 

But she added that 鈥渟evere staff shortages鈥� at the department 鈥渃ontinue to threaten data quality and research progress. We remain deeply concerned about the long-term impacts of these cuts on researchers and others who rely on federally collected and supported data.鈥�

Despite the Trump administration鈥檚 promise to shutter the Education Department, it seems to be looking for ways to keep its research activities moving forward. Last month, the administration published a , seeking public input on how it can modernize IES. That effort will stop temporarily during the current government shutdown.

The department has also brought in , a longtime Washington, D.C., education researcher, to take on the task of reforming IES. Northern, on leave from the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, is expected to remain at the department until December. While her remit lasts just six months, it is giving researchers hope that having one of their own advising McMahon will yield positive results.

鈥淚 am more hopeful than I was three months ago that there will be some reinvention, rather than a death, of federal education research,鈥� said a scholar at a top nonprofit research organization with several long-term federal contracts. 鈥淭o me, it seems just absurd that the federal government would say, 鈥榃e’re getting out of the realm of doing education research,鈥� because education is so fundamental to the future of the country.鈥�

In interviews, several researchers and policy experts said they鈥檙e similarly optimistic, but most requested to remain anonymous, fearing that speaking out could jeopardize future funding and relationships with administration officials.

Of Northern, one researcher said she鈥檚 鈥渧ery much someone who believes in empirical evidence. So I could not think of a better person to be advising the Trump administration on the future of IES.鈥�

Mike Petrilli, Fordham鈥檚 president and , said he was pleased that McMahon would turn to her for guidance. 鈥淚 always felt it was a good sign that they wanted somebody like Amber,鈥� he said, viewing it as 鈥渁n indication that they did want to rebuild鈥� IES, not get rid of it.

Petrilli, who has on occasion of Trump since his first election in 2016, said he鈥檚 optimistic that 鈥渢he people, the political appointees now at the Department of Education, understand the importance of research and evaluation and statistics.鈥� But Musk鈥檚 DOGE operation, he said, was 鈥渁ble to do great damage, terrible damage, before anybody had a chance to stop them.鈥�

Another person who works closely with researchers in the field, who asked not to be identified, said they have been assured by top administration officials that 鈥淭here’s a lot that’s going to come back online 鈥� it’s just going to come back online in different ways that some of the field will be ready for, and other parts of the field will not be ready for.鈥� The source said the department is looking into performance- and outcomes-based contracting, a more flexible system that lets agencies more clearly. 

Administration officials, meanwhile, have acknowledged 鈥渢he chaos of the first six months,鈥� which they don鈥檛 want to repeat, the source said. They鈥檙e in the process of shifting to 鈥渁 different sort of phase where we want to see results for this money that we’re spending.鈥�

In a statement, U.S. Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann said the Trump Administration 鈥渋s committed to supporting a national education research entity that delivers usable, high-quality data and resources for educators, researchers, and other stakeholders. This has been clear in the Secretary鈥檚 repeated commitments to protect NAEP. NCES and IES were in desperate need of reform.鈥�

McMahon in May told congressional lawmakers she had rehired 鈥溾�� of the approximately 2,000 department employees who were laid off last winter, though a department spokesperson disputed this.

Several people said they were surprised and heartened that IES last month began for eight 鈥� and possibly more 鈥� high-level assessment jobs at the National Center for Education Statistics, for work on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

But several experts said there鈥檚 a lot of work to do if the administration genuinely wants to rebuild its research infrastructure, given DOGE鈥檚 deep cuts last winter, when the ad hoc agency trimmed the NCES staff from about 100 employees to three. 

鈥淚t’s hard to be too optimistic, given the limited resources that NCES has in particular,鈥� said , a professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville who studies state higher education finance and the financial viability of higher education. 

Kelchen said the administration鈥檚 own priorities could make McMahon鈥檚 work more challenging, noting that an Aug. 7 executive order by President Trump forces NCES to undertake a massive that will collect data on admissions practices going back five years by race, sex and test scores, among other indicators. 

The order alleges that race-based admissions practices 鈥渁re not only unfair, but also threaten our national security and well-being.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

The survey, said Kelchen, is 鈥渁 massive data collection effort 鈥� and it’s hard to see how it ends up being successful, especially retroactively.鈥�

Poor NAEP results

Several people said recent poor student results on NAEP have likely catalyzed much of the strong support for IES.

鈥淭hey knew the NAEP results were going to be bad, and they got these NAEP job descriptions up quickly,鈥� said one observer.

Several others agreed, but just as many said the recent poor results bring a new urgency to reshaping NAEP so that its next generation of tests are both high-quality and relevant to educators.

鈥淣AEP is falling further and further behind in terms of the gold standard, which it hasn’t been for some time,鈥� said a former IES official. 鈥淏ut what is the plan? What’s the vision? NAEP just confirms bad news all the time. So what are we going to have in terms of policies to correct it?鈥� 

Another person familiar with NAEP predicted that even with NCES鈥檚 smaller staff, next year鈥檚 tests 鈥渨ill likely go off O.K.,鈥� but that many reporting functions, such as score reports broken out by states, have been cut to shrink costs, making the results less useful. 鈥淚t’s one thing to collect the data 鈥� it’s another thing to report it in a way that people can use.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

This person said NAEP is well-known for robust reporting platforms such as its , but IES has already said it will end future district-level reporting for 8th-grade history and science tests, among others. 鈥淚f we’re short-handed there, then people will say, ‘What’s the value of NAEP?鈥欌��

Looking ahead, this person worries that cuts to functions like the , an extensive database on public K-12 education, and other efforts could compromise the actual tests after 2026. 鈥淚f we don’t have good sampling and weighting, then NAEP is just a test. It’s not the Nation’s Report Card, because we need all those data to be able to make it a truly national picture.鈥�

The 鈥榚ducation improvement industrial complex鈥�

A prime example of the changes taking place is the expected reinstatement of the 10 regional education labs, or RELs, which were funded to the tune of $336 million, but were closed in February after the department alleged, without offering much evidence, that a review 鈥渨asteful and ideologically driven spending.鈥� It noted, for instance, that a lab based in Ohio had been advising schools there to undertake 鈥渆quity audits.鈥�

But educators nationwide have rallied to the labs鈥� defense, noting that in 2019 the REL Southeast, based at Florida State University, helped the state of Mississippi improve reading results so much that its fourth-graders rose from 49th in the nation to 29th 鈥� the so-called 鈥�Mississippi Miracle.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

The 10 labs will now be able to begin the process of restarting their work for the remainder of the federal contract, the department revealed in a in June. 

A researcher who works with school districts to design programs said the centers could be reconceived to be more helpful to teachers: 鈥淭here’s so much money. And if you think about what the products were, it’s hard in all cases to imagine that amount of money was yielding such exceptional change in the educational system that we need to keep going exactly as-is.鈥�

This person noted that outfits like the RELs often benefit from the support of an 鈥渆ducation improvement industrial complex鈥� that lobbies for continued funding. The DOGE cuts, this person said, badly undercut that support system.

At the same time, a few observers said IES more broadly should continue, no matter what the fate of the Education Department in this administration. 

鈥淚 believe firmly that there should be an Institute for Education Sciences, even if it is configured differently,鈥� said , senior director of the University of Chicago Education Lab. 鈥淧erhaps unsurprisingly, I believe in the power of R & D 鈥� and I think we need it more than ever, given declining test scores and the implications that has for our international competitiveness.鈥�

Achievement is dropping across the board on NAEP scores, she noted. 鈥淪o we have to start investing in this area if we’re going to make progress.鈥�

For his part, Kelchen, the Tennessee scholar, said the disruptions of the administration鈥檚 first nine months haven鈥檛 taken too much of a toll on his work. Aside from an IES grant proposal that simply never got reviewed, he conducts research without federal assistance and without using federal restricted use data, which typically contains confidential information that isn鈥檛 publicly released. Accessing it requires an . 

But he said the chaos is changing his classroom: Last spring, he taught a graduate course and remembered, 鈥淗alf the nights we met for class, there was some big announcement coming out of the Department of Education that affected higher ed finance,鈥� disrupting what he thought the class would talk about. In one case, he said, a Feb. 10 discussion of higher ed expenditures was cut short by the news of DOGE鈥檚 IES grant cuts 鈥渂reaking halfway through class.鈥�

More broadly, Kelchen said the uncertainty is making everyone at the university uneasy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an interesting time to be an academic department head, just given that enrollment鈥檚 uncertain, funding鈥檚 uncertain,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e could have normal international student enrollment in a year. We could have zero. We just don’t know about anything.鈥�

One of the major themes of my writing is that mass media is driven by , which is driven by , and this is .

So I genuinely hate to be the bearer of bad news or to complain that some negative information is receiving insufficient attention, but on September 9, we got the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores for 12th graders, and they were the .

That鈥檚 not good. At this point, I think we all understand that the pandemic badly disrupted schooling and that while this was worst in the places with prolonged school closures, it impacted all kinds of kids in all kinds of places.

But we would ideally be seeing at the national level  that we鈥檝e seen in Washington, D.C., which is that test scores fell dramatically after Covid but are bouncing back. Indeed, by one measure D.C.鈥檚 English language arts scores are the . But even using other measures or , where the results are much worse, D.C.鈥檚 public schools are at least making headway in recovering from the pandemic. Of course, D.C. had a positive trend in test scores before the pandemic. By contrast, if you look at the national picture, scores were declining between 2015 and 2019 as well, so it鈥檚 perhaps not a huge surprise that the decline has simply continued.

No demographic subgroups registered a statistically significant increase. And, as shown in the chart just below, the fall existed  鈥� the kids in the lowest percentiles experienced the biggest drop, but even the kids in the top percentiles are doing a little worse than they were 10 years ago.

This situation seems pretty bleak to me. Here is how the NAEP Basic competency level for 12th graders is  in terms of reading informational texts:

When reading informational text such as exposition and argumentation, 12th-grade students performing at the NAEP Basic level can likely

• use context, typically within close proximity, to identify the meaning of unknown words and phrases
  
• identify and make judgements about key details within and across texts
  
• use those details to draw simple inferences about author鈥檚 purpose, tone, and word choice
  
• provide opinions and sometimes support them with generalized text evidence
  
• evaluate the effectiveness of an author鈥檚 claim, organization, and evidence used
  
• utilize text features and organizational structure to locate information and identify textually explicit details

In other words, about a third of high school seniors basically can鈥檛 read prose text at all. They can (I hope) read signs and labels in stores and iMessage each other, but they cannot read a passage of text and understand what it鈥檚 saying.

This is really bad! And while there鈥檚 been a decent amount written about these latest test results, I think addressing this decline deserves more policy consideration, and space in the discourse, than it鈥檚 getting right now.

I think it鈥檚 worse here

To be totally honest, Plan A for this post was to look at international data and either show that the decline is a broadly global occurrence (and thus likely due to some global phenomenon like smartphones rather than United States-specific policy choices) or that it was concentrated in the U.S. and a few other countries (and thus likely due to narrow policy choices).

But this question is incredibly difficult to answer.

The best source of information on international student performance is the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, but . And PISA 2022 says that student performance suffered a sharp decline in most countries, as you might imagine post-pandemic.

The PISA results are also a reminder of something that I think many Americans don鈥檛 know: America鈥檚 overall educational performance is  for a rich country.

Our PISA reading scores were worse than Canada, Ireland, Estonia, and the rich Asian countries, but higher than everyone else in Europe. You used to be able to break out PISA scores by state, which would typically show things like. But that breakdown is no longer available.

But the main point I want to make about the 2022 PISA is that scores  in almost every country. One of the few exceptions is China, which I take with a grain of salt because they only provide data for a few disproportionately upscale cities rather than offering a nationwide snapshot the way other countries do.

This confirms that the pandemic was a big deal for education. Notably, it was a big deal for education everywhere. A lot of the best evidence we have that blue state officials did not handle school closures well (see David Zweig鈥檚 book 鈥溾��) comes from the fact that European schools were open. The public health consequences of that were mild, and it鈥檚 a good reminder that you don鈥檛 need to be some kind of MAGA superfan to see that there was a problem with the most cautious responses. On the other hand, the scores really did go down a lot across , despite the schools being open, just as they  across the U.S.

What I would really like to know, though, is whether other countries have experienced a rebound since 2022, in contrast to America鈥檚 continued decline.

The two major countries for which I can find recent national test data are Italy and Japan. In Italy, there was a big Covid-related drop but they are  while in Japan they are following a similar trajectory to the United States but the .

Unfortunately, it鈥檚 hard to get really clear info on this until we get another round of PISA tests. If I had to guess, I would say that when the new PISA comes out, we鈥檒l see that the U.S. is on a worse trajectory than many peer countries. For now, though, that鈥檚 just speculation.

Not trying doesn鈥檛 work

What we do know is that federal K-12 policy used to place a hefty premium on 鈥渁ccountability鈥� for local school districts. Students were supposed to either demonstrate a solid level of results, or else show clear signs of improvement. If a district couldn鈥檛 achieve one or the other, there were supposed to be consequences.

There was significant bipartisan backlash to this accountability regime, and it was .

I find this backlash fascinating. The whole idea of 鈥淣o Child Left Behind鈥� (N.C.L.B.) had become a big national joke by the time the Every Student Succeeds Act passed and shifted schools away from accountability. Teachers union stakeholders didn鈥檛 like N.C.L.B. Conservative decentralizers didn鈥檛 like it. Normie high-S.E.S. parents were annoyed at their kids needing to take tests, and normie low-S.E.S. parents didn鈥檛 like to hear that their kids were doing badly in school. All around, almost everyone seems to have decided they鈥檇 prefer a system that put less emphasis on trying to tell whether kids were learning and taking action if they weren鈥檛.

Chad Aldeman makes an interesting point about this. He notes that if you look across the full range of subjects and grade levels, the declines are not particularly concentrated in any specific demographic group, but they are concentrated among the weaker students. The trends for 12th-grade math scores are particularly stark in this regard, but it鈥檚 not unique in the history of American education outcomes.

I think this is important because there鈥檚 been a huge backlash to heavy-handed 鈥渆quity鈥� policies in some blue cities, with more and more people suggesting that schools should place more of an emphasis on excellence at the top.

I favor excellence at the top, and I think  is a mistake. But broadly speaking, in the N.C.L.B. era of accountability at the bottom, all students were improving! In the post-N.C.L.B. era, the best students are doing okay and the weakest students are in crisis.

I can鈥檛 say exactly why, beyond the observation that if you were concerned federal focus on accountability for weaker students was holding the strong students back, that doesn鈥檛 seem to be the case.

My guess would be that even if schools drop the ball, the best students wind up doing okay thanks to a blend of natural ability, self-motivation, and parental supplementation. But when you hold schools accountable for results at the bottom, they have no choice but to pay attention to instruction methods that work, which has positive results for basically all students.

And I do think these broad structural incentives are important. Karen Vaites writes a great article about the nitty-gritty of literacy instruction. I really enjoyed this one about how the  does not work as well as mixing abilities within groups, but then leveling individual reading assignments. Vaites speculates as to why teachers may not be informed about and using best practices. But one might ask the opposite question: Why would teachers be informed about and using best practices? They鈥檙e busy. They have a really hard job. If the administrators up the chain are under pressure to deliver results, then they will research best practices and make sure people are using them. But if not, then , it鈥檚 easier to just lower standards.

Similarly, it turns out that a lot of school districts now use reading curriculum packages that don鈥檛 feature whole books, just passages. Some people say this is pressure to 鈥渢each to the test.鈥� But kids taught this way don鈥檛 do better on reading comprehension tests 鈥� they do worse. The best explanation, , is that the passages method is cheaper. Of course, if you鈥檙e accountable for results, you鈥檙e much less likely to just go with the cheapest option. If you鈥檙e accountable for results, you go with an option that works.

Exercise for the mind

A telling fact about American education is that , when an accurate assessment would be about a third of that.

Aldeman notes that this is partly a policy issue. School districts conduct assessments in the spring, but often wait until fall to tell parents how their kids did. He鈥檚 right that this lag doesn鈥檛 make sense and should be fixed. However, it clearly also reflects a certain amount of parental incuriosity and optimism. And we鈥檙e seeing, I鈥檇 guess, an inclination on the part of classroom teachers to be people-pleasers rather than deliver bad news to parents. But that in turn reflects the reality that a large share of parents want to hear positive things about their kids and their school more than they want accurate information.

That鈥檚 understandable; I also like it when people say nice things about my son.

But it鈥檚 almost impossible to get good performance without measurement. And with reading in particular, it feels to me like whatever鈥檚 happening in school, we鈥檙e also living through a national collapse of interest.

I am actually quite sure my kid is above grade level in reading because Kate and I make sure he spends a good amount of time reading almost every day (and also because teachers at his school are good about sharing assessments multiple times per year). And while a lot of the books that he reads are either kid-centric books or easy-to-read Y.A. fantasy, some of them are books that we suggest to him as challenges. It is more difficult for him to read more challenging books (obviously), but he can, in fact, do it and he does, at least a little bit, every day.

And pretty much everything in life is like this. I鈥檓 not someone who enjoys exercise, but if I skip it for a while, I get horribly out of shape. So I really try to drag my ass to the gym every week.

I recently joined a new one and, as part of a prescribed workout, got to do some comically easy bench presses. That was fun; I like that a lot more than working hard. But there鈥檚 no real point in that 鈥� you have to do things that are difficult or you don鈥檛 get any better.

I鈥檓 also trying this year to be much  by prioritizing whole books of fiction over nonfiction stuff on the internet for work or quasi-work. I鈥檓 really good at skimming informational content, which is part of how I do this job. But precisely because I鈥檓 good at it, it鈥檚 better exercise to do the other thing and work on my attention span. A lot of that is fun thriller type stuff (I鈥檓 working my way through  mysteries), but I鈥檓 also reading 鈥溾�� and thus finish the complete works of the Bront毛 sisters.

On some level that鈥檚 a bit far afield from the education policy questions, but I think it sort of all relates. Of course there are extrinsic factors at work 鈥� digital distractions, a pandemic, often troubled home lives, etc. 鈥� but on some level we鈥檙e suffering mostly from a big national failure to take the educational goals of the school system seriously. As I wrote in the inaugural issue of States Forum over the summer, this is , where the levels of spending on K-12 education are much higher but nobody wants to ask the basic questions about whether appropriate curriculums are in use or whether schools are doing a good job. It鈥檚 possible that because of AI, education will become less economically important in the near future. But in some ways that only makes it even more urgent that we avoid a situation where everyone gets mentally flabby, just zoning out to short-form video all day.

The Center on Reinventing Public Education鈥檚 latest notes the number of teacher preparation program graduates ready to teach math fell by 36% from 2012 to 2020, dovetailing with a decline in student achievement. While the study released today did not prove causality, the link, researchers say, seems clear.聽

鈥淗igh-quality teachers matter,鈥� CRPE director Robin Lake said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the most powerful in-school factor in kids鈥� learning experience and it鈥檚 something people are not talking about enough.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

At the same time, a topic that has been widely discussed 鈥� the debate over whether explicit direct instruction trumps a more student-centered learning approach 鈥� has left some educators unsure of how to teach the subject, researchers found.

鈥淭he math wars are as old as education itself,鈥� said CRPE senior fellow Alexander Kurz. 鈥淭hat debate is alive and well through the science of math. As an educator, you are caught in the crossfire.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

The result: Nearly 4 in 10 eighth graders failed to achieve even the most basic level of math proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, such as calculating the area of a circle or multiplying fractions, the study notes. The most recent NAEP scores, released just last week, showed the nation鈥檚 12th graders doing worse in math than any senior class of the past generation.

While those scores were the first to come out for seniors since COVID, the study鈥檚 authors say the problem long predates the pandemic. They note that math performance in U.S. public schools has been declining for more than a decade and achievement gaps are at historic highs.

Girls, low-income kids, Black and Hispanic students, children with disabilities and multilingual learners are struggling most, CRPE reports. Citing NAEP data, the report notes that since 1990, the gap between the highest- and lowest-scoring students has grown 18% wider among eighth graders and more than 8.5% wider among fourth graders.

In addition to the teacher shortage and instructional quagmire, CRPE cites a number of other factors it believes contribute to abysmal student performance pre- and post- pandemic, including that many states’ test scores are inflated, obscuring results, 鈥渆specially for different student groups.鈥�

The report, the fourth of its kind, found that in , for example, students鈥� average math grade point average jumped 0.34 points from 2019 to 2021, triple the increase of the prior eight years. 

In , the report notes, math proficiency dropped 11 points on state exams while A and B grades on local courses declined by only 3 points. 

鈥淎 national study from 2021 to 2023 found that 57% of grades didn鈥檛 align with student knowledge as measured by tests, and two-thirds of those misaligned grades were inflated, most often for underserved groups,鈥� the CRPE report reads. 鈥淎CT data show rising GPAs, especially in math, despite falling test scores. By 2021, even students scoring in the 25th percentile were graduating with B averages or better.鈥�

The study found, too, schools are overly rigid, tracking students and hindering their success in the subject.

鈥淢iddle school math-tracking acts as math predestination, putting some students on a track to take Algebra I in eighth grade or earlier,鈥� the report reads. 鈥淟ess-advantaged students are less likely to be placed in advanced math courses, even when they demonstrate readiness.鈥�

Joel Rose, co-founder and chief executive officer of New Classrooms, a nonprofit that focuses on student-centered learning, called the report spot on, adding schools don鈥檛 account for children learning at different speeds. 

鈥淭here is really only one track, the grade-level track,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f you stay on it and never fall behind, you do fine. The problem is most kids fall behind for one reason or another and there are not any viable paths for them to catch back up.鈥�

It鈥檚 because of this, he said, that math education is turning into 鈥渙ur nation’s social sorting machine.鈥� Students who don鈥檛 catch on to the subject will find a whole series of career pathways closed off to them, he said. 

But all of these problems are solvable, CRPE contends, noting that states like and school districts like New Jersey鈥檚 and , have made replicable gains. 

Alabama is the only state where fourth graders scored higher in the subject than they did in 2019, prior to the pandemic. 

Karen Anderson, director of the state education department鈥檚 Office of Mathematics Improvement, said Alabama has worked hard to align classroom lessons with state standards and to use evidence-based practices and high-quality instructional materials to help all students 鈥� no matter their zip code or performance level.

鈥淲e want to make sure we are using instructional strategies that actually provide results,鈥� Anderson said. 鈥淲e also want to make sure we know what students know 鈥� and what they don鈥檛 know. And, when we see students who need help, we provide assistance immediately.鈥�

CRPE recommends schools stop poo-pooing direct instruction 鈥� in which teachers demonstrate or explain procedures and concepts. Likewise, it concluded teachers need clear guidance on how to balance conceptual understanding with procedural fluency 鈥� in addition to real-time data to identify gaps and better structure their lessons.

Melodie Baker, founder and executive director of , which aims to use research to empower communities of color, has worked in mathematics for decades. She said robust teacher preparation at the elementary school level is critical for student success.

鈥淭he lack of emphasis on math in elementary is a big issue,鈥� she said. 鈥淔or example, teacher prep programs spend far more time on early literacy than math.鈥�

But they are of equal importance, Baker said.  

CRPE concluded states should consider better pay, team-teaching models and math specialists as a means to address the math teacher shortage. 

In terms of improving the student experience, it advises schools to adopt 鈥渇lexible pathways with multiple on-ramps, automatic acceleration, and no lower-track dead ends.鈥�

Based on their conversations with students, CRPE concluded that schools need to better serve children who require more time to understand math concepts.

鈥淥ne thing I don’t like is when I ask a teacher a question because I don’t understand it, and then they make me feel like I’m a bother and I really shouldn’t ask more questions,鈥� an 11th grader from Connecticut told CRPE researchers in 2022. 鈥淎nd that prevents me from learning. And I hated that because I actually want to know.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

The student鈥檚 claims correspond with what CRPE found: Schools are regularly missing opportunities to address academic problems head-on. 

And while the federal Every Student Succeeds Act explicitly requires states to develop a concise and easily understandable online report card, most don鈥檛 meet the standard. CRPE found just 18 break down math achievement and growth data by student subgroups 鈥渋n a way that we thought was clear and understandable.鈥�

Only Illinois, the report notes, earned the highest rating in this category by providing comprehensive math performance and opportunity data that CRPE thought most parents would be able to use and understand.

Scores last week on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP test, often called 鈥渢he Nation鈥檚 Report Card,鈥� showed that just 22% of seniors were 鈥減roficient鈥� or above in math, down from 24% in 2019. And just 35% were proficient in reading, down from 37% in 2019. Higher percentages in 2024 also scored in NAEP鈥檚 鈥渂elow basic鈥� level in both subjects.

That has prompted a chorus of protests from experts who believe that, among other problems, digital devices and social media are dragging down U.S. teens. 

Harvard scholar Martin West, who co-leads the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, said in an the day the scores appeared that emerging evidence of widening achievement gaps in other developed countries suggests that we should be looking at 鈥渇actors that transcend national boundaries.鈥�

The rise of smartphones 鈥� and particularly the advent of social media use among young people 鈥� seems a likely culprit, he said.

鈥淭he timing fits,鈥� West wrote. 鈥淧hones distract students from math homework just as much as they do from reading.鈥� And surveys show that disadvantaged students spend the most time on their devices, 鈥渨hile motivated students of all backgrounds may be able to use them to enhance their learning.鈥� He noted that disadvantaged students saw the biggest score drops.

While there鈥檚 no definitive causal link between smartphones and learning, West said, the circumstantial evidence is 鈥渟ufficiently strong鈥� to justify experimenting with all-day 鈥渂ell-to-bell鈥� phone bans in schools, as well as continued efforts to 鈥渞ein in students鈥� near-constant use of other digital devices while in class.鈥�

A 2024 found that about one in three teachers consider students distracted by cell phones 鈥渁 major problem.鈥� Among high school teachers, that figure rises sharply, to 72%. More recently, Pew researchers 74% of U.S. adults say they would support banning cellphones during class for middle and high school students, up from 68% last fall. 

Much of that momentum grows from years of efforts by the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has pushed for schools to . Haidt, author of the mega-bestseller , says there鈥檚 growing evidence of an 鈥渋nternational epidemic鈥� of mental illness that started around 2012, caused in part by social media and teens鈥� uptake of smartphones in the early 2010s. 

鈥淢any parents now see the addiction and distraction these devices cause in their children; most of us have heard harrowing stories of self-harming behavior and suicide attempts among our friends鈥� children,鈥� Haidt wrote in 2023, weeks after the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warning that social media use in particular can carry 鈥渁 profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.鈥�

Murthy said there wasn鈥檛 enough evidence to determine if social media use 鈥渋s sufficiently safe鈥� for young people, especially during adolescence, 鈥渁 particularly vulnerable period of brain development.鈥� While the evidence suggests that social media could put kids鈥� mental health and well-being at risk, he admitted that more research is needed to fully understand its impact.

To San Diego State University professor and psychologist Jean Twenge, the new NAEP scores 鈥渁re yet another indication that academic performance is suffering and we need to do something.鈥�

The academic declines predate the COVID pandemic, she said, reaching back to the early 2010s, just as smartphones became popular 鈥� Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007. 鈥淪o yes, teens having access to their phones during the school day could certainly be one of the causes of the declines in test scores,鈥� she said in an email.

Twenge, author of the new book , said bell-to-bell phone bans 鈥渁re one obvious and usually low-cost solution.鈥� That idea, she said, 鈥渉as only started to catch on in the last year, so we don’t yet know what impact it’s having.鈥� She noted that it鈥檚 not even clear how many schools have adopted them, but theorized that they鈥檒l make a difference.

鈥淲hen the phone is available, it’s just too tempting for students to look at it,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen rules are only classroom-by-classroom, many teachers allow students to use their phones after they’ve completed their work. What teenager wouldn’t rush through their work to get on their phone? It’s setting them up to fail.鈥�

鈥楾he research is not strong, but public opinion is鈥�

Research on the topic and related issues is beginning to emerge, but doubts about its utility leave a few researchers skeptical.

Writing in Education Next last week, University of Virginia cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham noted that more screen time is with poor attention regulation, for instance. Most studies, he said, support the hypothesis that children鈥檚 screen time is associated with poorer attentional control, but the size of the observed relationship, on average, is small.

He warned that educators should keep in mind the context of kids鈥� digital device use, such as the notion that more screen time could coincide with particular styles of parenting that could also affect kids鈥� abilities. 鈥淧arents may allow their child more access to screens in an effort to improve their child鈥檚 mood or behavior,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淥r screen activities may keep the child occupied so parents have time for their own pursuits.鈥�

And of course wealthy families may have easier access to pastimes that aren鈥檛 screen-based. 鈥淚n each case,鈥� Willingham said, 鈥渋t may be elements of the context that have the critical effect on attention, not digital activities per se.鈥�

In one 2024 study, University of Delaware researchers from 1,459 middle schoolers, ages 11 to 15, finding that their academic achievement decreased as their self-reported use of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and X increased. Controlling for age, gender, race and ethnicity, they found that participants鈥� grades dropped as the frequency of their social media use across all four platforms rose.

By contrast, a by Chinese researchers found that medical students who used social media platforms like WeChat to discuss their work did better and were more engaged in discussions. 

Marilyn Campbell, a professor in the school of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at Australia鈥檚 , cautioned that current peer-reviewed research hasn鈥檛 found an airtight causal connection between mobile phone use and students鈥� academic performance, their mental health or even the likelihood of being cyberbullied. 

鈥淭he research is not strong, but public opinion is,鈥� she said. 鈥淧ublic opinion is driving this, or else why would politicians get involved?鈥�  

Australia has had a near-total cell phone ban in public schools since 2023, and lawmakers have sung its praises: In South Australia, where the ban didn鈥檛 take effect until 2024, showed a 63% decline in “critical incidents involving social media” in the first six months, with behavioral issues down 54% and violent incidents down 10%. But Campbell has noted that there鈥檚 little reliable research on academics, mental health and the like.

Banning phones in school makes a kind of logical sense to many people, she said, because there鈥檚 a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting it. But she said it鈥檚 often a false connection. Campbell compared it to watching summer ice cream sales rise and concluding that it鈥檚 ice cream that makes sunglasses fly off the shelves. 

In a of 22 research studies from 12 countries, Campbell and several colleagues found 鈥渓ittle to no conclusive evidence鈥� that broad mobile phone bans in schools produce better academics or mental health, or that they reduce cyberbullying. 

Conversely, she said, it鈥檚 not entirely clear if banning cell phones in school could have unintended harmful consequences, such as parents finding it more difficult to get kids to do homework or to put away their phones at home 鈥渂ecause they’ve got to catch up on all their social media that they haven’t been able to during the break times,鈥� Campbell said.

She also said it鈥檚 possible that students in schools with phone bans are staying up later with their phones and missing sleep, which would also have a negative effect on academics.

Campbell also said broad bans leave young people with less practice self-regulating their device use. 鈥淜ids leave our schools when they’re 18,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey’re adults, they’re going to university, and they have had no training [or] practical experience of saying, 鈥業 really want to look at my phone, but I know it’s rude or it’s the wrong thing to do, and I’m going to control myself and not do this.鈥� They’ve had none of that experience when they go to work, when they go to further education.鈥�

And in a few cases, she said, bans on devices can hurt poor kids. She recalled a school in Australia with a lot of kids from low-income families whose principal said many students have phones, but few can afford data plans. The principal, she said, encouraged kids to bring their phones to school so they could take advantage of the school’s Wi Fi. 

鈥淗e said, 鈥業f I can get them to school, I can keep them safe. They’re not wandering around the malls and getting in trouble. I can feed them, and hopefully they might learn something.鈥欌��

Tom Kane, an economist and education professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said the next year or so will be key as scholars push to study U.S. school cell phone bans already in place for evidence that they鈥檝e made a difference. 鈥淭hat’s central to this question of what’s been driving the loss in achievement,鈥� he said.

While such bans can鈥檛 address all of the conditions making achievement suffer, he said, they can eliminate distractions during the school day. He just hopes the findings see the light of day sooner rather than later, with a scientific consensus emerging over the next year or two.

鈥淲e can’t wait a decade to figure out what was the effect of these cell phone bans,鈥� he said. 

Harvard鈥檚 West, who also serves on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, said policymakers also need to consider higher, clearer standards for students and ways to hold schools accountable for ensuring kids meet state standards 鈥� he noted that, for all the derision No Child Left Behind generated, 鈥渋t produced results鈥� such as steadily rising levels of achievement, driven by large gains for the nation鈥檚 lowest-performers 鈥� the opposite of what we鈥檙e seeing now.

West鈥檚 two sons have phones, and he admitted that he takes comfort 鈥渋n being able to reach my boys as needed.鈥� But he also appreciates experts鈥� calls to put phones away. 鈥淐oupled with greater accountability around student achievement, it may be the single most important thing we can do to help our kids learn,鈥� he wrote.

While the evidence for phone bans improving academics might take years, one teacher said he鈥檚 seeing results already, in a matter of weeks. 

Blake Harvard, an AP high school psychology teacher in Madison, Ala., a suburb of Huntsville, said Alabama鈥檚 , enacted in May, is already having an effect since school began in early August. 鈥淚’m getting more from my students than I did鈥� last year, he said. 鈥淣ow, of course, that’s anecdotal, but I sincerely think discussions are better. I’m getting more student participation from [students] in the past who may have been trying to sneak a cell phone.鈥�

Harvard, the author of a recent book on the psychology of student attention, said he and his colleagues initially worried that students wouldn鈥檛 put up with a ban. 鈥淏ut they’ve been fine about it, honestly,鈥� he said. 鈥淰ery quickly, everyone was just like, 鈥榃ell, O.K., this is the way it is.鈥欌��

Harvard makes sure he talks to classes each fall about the brain science behind attention, such as how multitasking is a myth. 鈥淵ou can’t consciously pay attention to two things at once,鈥� he said. 

Looking at one鈥檚 social media notifications while driving is dangerous. Likewise, he said, 鈥淚f you’re looking at all your notifications in class, that’s getting your attention. So the lesson itself can’t get your attention.鈥�

Just a few weeks into the semester, Harvard said his students have already figured out that while the law says they can鈥檛 have a phone 鈥渙n their person鈥� during the school day, they can keep it stowed in a backpack on the floor 鈥� the school doesn鈥檛 have lockers. As he was walking among desks the other day, he noticed a phone visible in a student鈥檚 open backpack. He joked that he might have to write her up, to which she replied, 鈥淚t’s not 鈥榦n my person.鈥欌�� 

Harvard thought to himself, 鈥淲ell, if students didn’t know what 鈥榦n my person鈥� meant before this, in legal parlance, they know what it means now. They figured it out quickly.鈥�

Disclosures: The Future of High School Network and 社区黑料 both receive financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, XQ and the Walton Family Foundation.

U.S. eighth graders are less prepared to be the scientists of tomorrow than they were before the pandemic. 

In the first nationwide test of students鈥� science knowledge since 2019, the percentage of students scoring at the proficient level fell to 29%, down from 33%, and the average score dropped back to levels last seen in 2009, when a new version of the test was introduced, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Students鈥� confidence in the subject area has also slipped, with 28% saying they 鈥渄efinitely can do various science-related activities,鈥� down from 34%. 

Performance fell across all three categories 鈥� physical, life, and earth and space sciences. Less than half of students can identify the major component of living cells, compared to 55% in 2019, and the percentage of students who can identify a characteristic of mammals declined from 72% to 68%. 

It鈥檚 not just the decline in skills that concerns science experts, it鈥檚 the dramatic decrease in their interest. The share of students saying they enjoy science activities plummeted from 52% to 42%. 

鈥淚f you’re not interested, it’s hard to learn,鈥� said Christine Cunningham, senior vice president of STEM learning at the Museum of Science in Boston and a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP. Students were also less likely than in 2019 to say they engage in tasks like designing research questions, debating scientific ideas and conducting experiments to explain why something happens. 鈥淎s someone who works a lot with students or with teachers who do that kind of inquiry, that’s why students get excited.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

COVID-era school closures derailed student learning in all areas, but science was hit especially hard as teachers tried to keep kids on track in reading and math. A from the Public Policy Institute of California showed that only about a quarter of districts emphasized science in their recovery efforts. Teachers were more likely to assign free online lessons and let students work at their own pace, compared with a typical school year. Widespread declines in reading performance have also hampered students鈥� ability to keep up in science at a time when technology is rapidly evolving. 

鈥淪cience is such a hands-on experience, and trying to find ways to bring that to different homes was challenging,鈥� said Autumn Rivera, a sixth grade science teacher in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, west of Denver. 鈥淓leven- and 12-year-olds really need a lot of activity.鈥�

She got families involved in 鈥渒itchen chemistry,鈥� asked students to and recorded videos of lessons to discuss with students on Zoom. One of their favorite experiments was studying the water cycle by hanging a plastic bag full of water in a sunny window. 

In the spring of 2021, , students had missed out on at least two months of science learning. By 2024, science achievement in third to fifth grade had returned to 2019 levels, but seventh and eighth graders, across all racial groups, saw the most significant declines and were still more than three months behind pre-pandemic performance.

One former education secretary warned against using COVID “as an excuse.” Margaret Spellings, who led the department during George W. Bush’s administration, noted that as with students’ achievement in other subject areas, performance in science did not improve between 2015 and 2019. Average scores for eighth and 12th graders were flat and declined for fourth graders.

A positive trend, Cunningham said, is that more elementary schools have added STEM as part of an elective rotation with art and music. Those classes can be highly engaging, but aren鈥檛 always focused on grade-level standards, she said. In addition, regular classroom teachers might scale back science lessons and focus more on reading and math. 

High and low performers

The declines in achievement were not confined to a few student groups. They affected students whether or not they live in the suburbs, come from wealthier homes or have parents who graduated from college. Students without disabilities and who speak English as a first language also scored lower than in 2019. 

But Matt Soldner, acting NCES commissioner, pointed out what he considers the one encouraging sign from the results  鈥� a 6-point increase in scores for English learners. 

鈥淣AEP describes the what, not the why,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut that’s an interesting subgroup finding.鈥�

As with other NAEP assessments, the science results show a widening gap between students scoring at the highest and lowest levels. Scores for students in the 90th percentile dropped from 196 to 194, but fell further, from 106 to 101, for students at the 10th percentile.  In fact, for students at both the 10th and 25th percentiles, scores are at 鈥渉istoric lows,鈥� said Soldner. 鈥淭hese results should galvanize all of us to take concerted focused action to accelerate student learning.鈥�

Julia Rafal-Baer, co-founder of ILO Group, an education consulting firm, and also a member of the governing board, said access to books likely contributes to the disparities in scores. If science wasn鈥檛 a high priority in some schools, 鈥渉ow is it that high-performing kids are still absorbing enough to be able to be high-performing?鈥� she asked.

Many students, Rivera said, lack the reading skills to interpret science texts. 

鈥淚鈥檓 having to take a step back and really focus on basic reading 鈥� which is not something  that I am technically trained in as a sixth grade teacher,鈥� she said. Like many teachers, she also sees families place less emphasis on consistent attendance and good work habits. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing students missing work. We鈥檙e not really seeing 鈥� emphasis placed on school or on achievement.鈥�

Poor basic math skills are also hindering students鈥� progress in science, said Cunningham, who designs STEM curriculum materials for schools across the country.

鈥淭eachers are spending more time making sure that the kids are prepared to do some of the things that in the past they may have assumed kids would come equipped to do,鈥� she said. 鈥淐ould they make a table? Could they make a graph?鈥�

On NAEP, the percentage of students saying they frequently 鈥渦sed tables or graphs to identify relationships between variables鈥� fell from 43% to 39%. Less than a third 鈥渦sed math equations to explain or support scientific conclusions.鈥�

鈥楽tarving ourselves of knowledge鈥�

NAEP will assess students鈥� reading and math skills again in 2026, but the next won鈥檛 take place until 2028, again just for eighth grade. Students will take that includes a stronger emphasis on students applying their knowledge and will incorporate more technology and engineering topics. 

Because so many students 鈥� at least a third 鈥� score below basic, Cunningham added that the board felt it was important to expand the number of questions targeting students at that level.  

鈥淲e need to know more about what that population knows,鈥� she said. The questions, for example, might be simpler and require less reading.

Fourth graders were left out of the 2024 and 2028 science tests for budget reasons, Cunningham said. They鈥檙e scheduled to participate again in 2032. But one former governing board member said the absence of data from fourth graders is troubling.

鈥淚f there had to be a cut, I understand why we would, but it still raises the question of what we expect in science in early grades,鈥� said Andrew Ho, a testing expert and education professor at Harvard University. 鈥淲hy are we starving ourselves of knowledge about educational progress outside of [English language arts and math]?鈥�

Staff cuts to NCES of the results, which were expected earlier this summer. 

During a background call with reporters last week, a member of the governing board said the results were 鈥渁n opportunity for the field to see that these report cards are of the same quality that they have come to expect from the NAEP program.鈥� But an NCES official on the same call said that in light of Education Secretary Linda McMahon firing most of the center鈥檚 employees, the department will need 鈥渟ufficient staff and other resources in place鈥� to conduct the tests next year and plan for 2028.

McMahon reiterated her support for the NAEP program during a .

鈥淚f we have an objective measure across all states, like NAEP, then I think that’s the best way to go,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e will not get away from having NAEP scores and the research that we can all rely on to make sure that we’re doing the right things.鈥�&苍产蝉辫; 

鈥楢I-driven world鈥�

Beverly DeVore-Wedding, president of the National Science Teaching Association, still worries that the 鈥渃urrent political climate鈥� will diminish the program. 

鈥淚 am concerned about them changing the assessment picture and that NAEP could get reduced to only reading and mathematics,鈥� she said. 

The science results also have implications for other aspects of President Donald Trump鈥檚 agenda, such as incorporating artificial intelligence into learning. Last week, first lady Melania Trump hosted an event tied to the for students to use AI to address community challenges. 

鈥淚t’s not one of those things to be afraid of,鈥� McMahon said at the event. 鈥淟et’s embrace it. Let’s develop AI-based solutions to real-world problems.鈥�

Rafal-Baer said the rapid adoption of AI tools just reinforces the importance of science education.

鈥淎I is here and it鈥檚 already reshaping how we work, learn and solve problems,鈥� she said.聽 鈥淭he complexity is only going to accelerate, and we can鈥檛 afford to have a scientifically illiterate workforce trying to navigate an AI-driven world.鈥�

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated whether the 8th grade NAEP science exam gathers supplemental data on students鈥� home environments or reading habits.

In the first nationwide indicator of how older students have fared since the pandemic, the news is bad, but not surprising: COVID took a bite out of already declining basic skills.

Between 2019 and 2024, scores in both math and reading sank three percentage points, a statistically significant drop, according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP tests, often called 鈥渢he Nation鈥檚 Report Card.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Tested in the spring of 2024, just 22% of seniors were 鈥減roficient鈥� or above in math, down from 24% in 2019. And just 35% were proficient in reading, down from 37% in 2019. Higher percentages in 2024 also scored in NAEP鈥檚 鈥渂elow basic鈥� level in both subjects.

The results, released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department, are 鈥渟obering,鈥� said Matthew Soldner, acting commissioner of the . He noted 鈥渟ignificant declines in achievement鈥� among the lowest-performing students going back even before the pandemic. In one particularly grim indicator, a larger percentage of the Class of 2024 scored in the tests鈥� 鈥渂elow basic鈥� level in both math and reading than in any previous assessment dating back decades.

Among other findings: 

• In math, 45% of students scored below basic, compared to 40% in 2019 and 35% in 2013;
• In reading, 32% of students were below basic, up from 30% in 2019 and 28% in 2015;
• 45% reported a 鈥渓ow level of interest and enjoyment鈥� in reading, a slight improvement from 49% in 2019;
• Just 35% met NCES鈥檚 standard for being academically prepared for college, down from 37% in 2019. 

Of special concern: female students, who typically outperform their male peers in reading, saw worse results than in 2019, while male students鈥� reading across all achievement levels were basically flat.

The reading decline among female students aligns with previous findings about the severe toll that both the pandemic and social media have taken on adolescent girls. One found that teen girls were struggling the most relative to other groups when it comes to anxiety and depression, as well as the physical manifestations of these problems, such as headaches and stomach aches.

Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the and an author on the study, noted that the poor results 鈥渁re coming at a terrible time, when there is zero federal effort to improve education through policy and indeed the federal government is withholding education dollars over tired culture war battles.鈥�

鈥榃e have not recovered from COVID鈥�

Dan Goldhaber of the American Institutes for Research said the new results are particularly troublesome in light of the federal government鈥檚 $190 billion COVID investment in schools. Given that effort, he said, the five years between 2019 and 2024 should have brought 鈥渂oth sharp drops and recovery鈥� as students lived through the pandemic and schools benefited from unprecedented investment. But except in limited cases, scores never improved.

鈥淭hese results, to me, are just more confirmation that we have not recovered from COVID,鈥� Goldhaber said. 鈥淎nd my guess is that some of why we haven’t recovered is because of the trends in achievement that we saw in the decade prior to the pandemic.鈥�

Tom Kane of the Harvard Graduate School of Education agreed: 鈥淪omething fundamental in U.S. schools is broken and we need to fix it,鈥� he said. 

Kane theorized that among top candidates for the malaise are: absenteeism rates that have yet to return to pre-pandemic norms; reduced school system commitments to test-driven accountability, and the effects of social media.

In 2024, 31% of 12th-graders who took the tests reported missing three or more days of school in the prior month, compared to 26% who took the math tests in 2019 and 25% who took reading tests. Kane noted that has found students who miss school make instruction less effective for others when they return because they鈥檙e spending teachers鈥� time getting themselves caught up on what they missed.

Former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the past several administrations have squandered the power of the federal government when it comes to education policy, weakening its ability to push improvements.

“When you take your foot off the gas and stop using federal leadership, federal imperative around these performance issues, it shows up,” she said in an interview. Spellings, who now leads the , a Washington, D.C., think tank that encourages civil political discourse between parties, noted that the Every Student Succeeds Act, implemented by President Obama, was 鈥渓ess muscular” than No Child Left Behind, enacted under President George W. Bush and overseen by Spellings. “We know how to use the federal role in smarter ways to the benefit of kids, and we stopped doing it.”

鈥楾ruly a five-alarm fire鈥�

The latest NAEP tests were administered from January through March 2024, to a sampling of students in 1,500 schools nationwide, with 24,300 seniors sitting for reading tests and 19,300 for math. The tests last about an hour and are administered on laptops or tablet computers. They carry no stakes for students, who are, in some cases, just weeks from graduation. As a result, researchers have found that far fewer 12th-graders perceive that they must do well on the tests 鈥� a found that 86% of fourth-graders said it鈥檚 important, while just 35% of 12th-graders said the same.

But Kane and others said that may be a negligible factor in the poor results, since scores are as low, in many cases, as they鈥檝e ever been. 鈥淭hat can’t be explained by kids just not thinking the test matters,鈥� said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University.

Low stakes notwithstanding, USC鈥檚 Polikoff said the results are unsurprising and 鈥渘o less disappointing鈥� on that account. Seniors鈥� poor performance, he said, closely matches recent trends from earlier grades and has been on the decline .

Of special concern, he and others said, are the achievement declines of the lowest performing students in both math and reading 鈥� especially the unprecedented rise in students performing below basic. 鈥淭hat our lowest achieving students are falling so far behind is truly a five-alarm fire,鈥� he said. 

AIR鈥檚 Goldhaber pointed out that much of the overall decline in 12th-grade scores can be attributed to sharp drops by this group. 鈥淥ne of the reasons that the average NAEP tests are coming down,鈥� he said, 鈥渋s because the bottom is just falling out of the distribution.鈥�

While researchers are just beginning to get their arms around why skills are suffering at the moment, Polikoff agreed that the rise of and social media are at play, as well as declines in and 鈥渢he current toxic political moment that high schoolers are probably sensitive to and that distracts from real efforts to improve schools.鈥�

Harvard鈥檚 Kane said he鈥檚 eager to see results from research related to the recent proliferation of school mobile phone bans, but worried that, given the slow pace of academic research, the findings won鈥檛 come fast enough to make a difference. 鈥淚’m just worried that left to our own, without a concerted, coordinated effort, there’s going to be competing studies about the effect of cell phone bans and it’s going to get caught up in politics. We can’t wait for that. There needs to be a concerted effort to try to form a scientific consensus on what was the effect of the ban, in the next year or two.鈥�

Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Brookings Institution鈥檚 Center for Universal Education and co-author of on teen disengagement, said COVID鈥檚 鈥渞ipple effects鈥� are long-lasting, affecting many aspects of students鈥� lives. 鈥淚f you have your first couple of years of high school where you really have very little learning happening, it’s not a surprise that you’re going to be performing much worse on your core competencies than other generations,鈥� she said.

Winthrop and a co-author found that teens are disengaging from school 鈥渁cross the board,鈥� in both public and private schools, responding to what they perceive as poor-quality instruction, irrelevant pedagogy and unsupportive environments. 

鈥淏ut kids who are from higher-income families get second chances when they disengage,鈥� Winthrop said. 鈥淧oor kids don’t.鈥�

CRPE鈥檚 Lake said the disappointing results are 鈥渇rustrating,鈥� since she and others have been sounding the alarm for several years now 鈥渢hat if we don’t change course, things will be very bad 鈥� and things are very bad.鈥�

The solutions, she said, will come from improving bedrock indicators 鈥� instruction and teacher quality, especially for struggling students, as well as 鈥漚ccountability for adults in the system.鈥�

鈥淚f there鈥檚 one thing that I’d say people should focus on, it鈥檚 the kids who are in free-fall decline,鈥� Lake said. 鈥淚t’s way more than most people think. Only the top 10% of kids are continuing to do well. All the others are declining. 鈥� We know what to do. We just need to figure out how to get it done.鈥�

As grim as the results are, Harvard鈥檚 Kane said, they point to the ongoing importance of NAEP at a time when its future is less than certain. Just weeks after the second Trump administration took office, Department of Government Efficiency workers slashed Education Department personnel, firing NCES鈥檚 longtime director and reducing its headcount from about 100 employees to three.

But as many states loosen accountability requirements, he said, the federal testing role becomes more, not less, important. Without NAEP, he said, 鈥渨e could have just coasted along鈥� unaware of the bigger picture.

As the Trump administration works to reconfigure the Institute for Education Sciences, Kane said, 鈥渋t ought to be a vehicle for answering these questions: 鈥榃hat was the effect of the cell phone bans? How do we lower absenteeism?鈥� And that could be done in partnership with states. But it requires a strategy. It’s not just going to happen. Somebody is going to have to decide that these are priorities and work with states to try to find the answers.鈥�

74 Senior Writer Linda Jacobson contributed to this report.

Disclosures: The Future of High School Network and 社区黑料 both receive financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, XQ and the Walton Family Foundation.

While critics say it failed to boost student achievement 鈥� average fourth-grade math scores have dropped three points and eighth grade by nine since 2009, according to 鈥� its champions say it alone can鈥檛 improve test performance. Teacher preparedness and learning materials play a far greater role, they argue.

And they credit the Common Core for achieving something that had never been done before: building an on-ramp to algebra from arithmetic. 

Dave Kung, executive director at , a professional organization that works in the higher education space, said this transition was critical, and a major departure from how the subject was taught in earlier decades. 

鈥淭he system I went through was largely arithmetic in elementary school and all of a sudden, bam, you hit algebra and suddenly it鈥檚 pretty theoretical and pretty abstract,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he ramp I鈥檓 describing is from the concrete nature of arithmetic to the more abstract world of algebra. The Common Core refocused people鈥檚 attention on student thinking and that鈥檚 an important thing.鈥�

The Common Core was rolled out in 2010 to address the unevenness with which the subject was taught throughout the nation and deepen students’ understanding of this complex topic, often providing children with more than one way to solve a problem. 

Many at the new approach and parents, flummoxed by not being able to help their kids with a subject they鈥檇 learned so differently, begrudgingly .  

It took years in many cases for schools to create or adopt the to support the standards. Meanwhile, political foes labeled the standards and school communities buckled under the constant testing pressure with many students of related exams. 

Despite these challenges, math experts say dozens of states still use the standards, some by their original name and others under new monikers. The Common Core has, in many cases, survived even as states across the country revamp their standards to combat poor student performance and wrestle with how to make math and STEM pathways more inclusive. 

While and Florida are among those that dropped the standards 鈥� Sunshine State leaders were gleeful about abandoning what they called 鈥� others have kept them while making some modifications. 

Louisiana is one such location, changing in 2016. Fourth graders saw their NAEP scores jump between 2022 and 2024 while eighth graders moved a single point. State schools chief Cade Brumley credited the state鈥檚 back-to-basics approach for students鈥� success. 

In Wisconsin, the Common Core remains largely intact, surviving three U.S. presidents and all of the politicization of education that has come with each new term. 

Mary Mooney, a mathematics education consultant with the state, was serving Milwaukee Public Schools when the standards first arrived in 2010. She said her district was uniquely receptive thanks in part to its strong focus on professional learning.  

鈥淎t the district level, we were incredibly excited for the Common Core,鈥� Mooney said. 鈥淚t was finally going to tell us what mathematics is. We thought it was a collection of skills that helps you get an answer. But the Common Core did an amazing job of building better narratives about what mathematics really is and why it is important to every student.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

She said it helped teachers make connections they hadn鈥檛 before. 

“Everybody was challenged with these standards to think differently about mathematics,鈥� she said, adding some teachers, for example, didn’t realize multiplication was so closely tied to elements of geometry. “That was the power of the Common Core. But you really needed good professional learning to see the beauty and power in those standards.鈥�

And while some lament the Common Core for its perceived lack of impact on test scores, Kung said he isn鈥檛 too concerned about the standards鈥� relationship to students鈥� grades. 

He said the National Assessment of Educational Progress and state tests often reflect “straightforward procedural stuff,” adding, “if a student lost a little bit of that, I鈥檓 kind of OK with that if what they gained is a better understanding of what is going on.”

As a historical analogy, he noted that at some point students lost their ability to use . And nobody bemoans that, he said, adding there are some elements of mathematics 鈥� what he calls 鈥渢he drill-and-kill stuff鈥� 鈥� for which there are no remaining proponents. 

When Wisconsin was given a chance to jettison the standards during a review process a few years ago, Mooney said, the state opted to keep them, driven by their success and the effort it took to learn and adopt them. And the Common Core made educators rethink the notion of math fluency, which often equated to speed.聽

There are far better goals, she said.

鈥淲hen you think about being fast, you tend to have memorization as the only strategy for understanding your facts,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e added 鈥榝lexible鈥� and 鈥榚fficient,鈥� which helped teachers 鈥� to teach the math behind the facts and not simply getting an answer.鈥�

Arlene Crum, director of math for Washington state until last year, said state law requires the education department to periodically revise its learning standards. The review began when Crum still worked for the state, she said, adding she urged officials to stay true to the Common Core for three critical reasons. 

First, she said, the standards were sound. And districts had been working for the last 10 years to make sure their instructional materials were aligned to it at her office鈥檚 request, she said. 

鈥淪o, I felt it would be a huge task for districts to have the rug suddenly pulled out from them,鈥� Crum said. 鈥淎nd because it鈥檚 a national set of standards, there are a ton of resources to help teachers with it.鈥�

Josh Recio of the in Austin said the Common Core works best in the younger years and in getting students ready for the challenges of algebra, a gateway course to higher-level math in high school and college. 

鈥淢ost people realize the K-8th grade Common Core standards do a really nice job of preparing students for algebra in high school,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here is something to be said for having guidance, for having people who are very smart and understand these issues that students face and took the time to write down a set of standards to prepare students for high school. There is a progression of learning that makes sure you are successful once you get there.鈥�

The Gates Foundation provides financial support to Charles A. Dana Center and to 社区黑料.

Take New York, for example. In its latest 鈥�, the Education Law Center adjusted school spending figures relative to their regional labor market costs. It gave New York鈥檚 school funding system an A for the total amount of money it sent to public schools, a B for the distribution of those funds among schools and an A for the amount of money it spent relative to the state鈥檚 overall gross domestic product per capita.

Overall, New York came out as one of the top-rated school funding systems, if not the highest-rated.

And yet, New York students perform slightly below national averages. While its schools $33,970 per student, $15,509 more per pupil than the rest of the country, in Fiscal Year 2022 its students overall student performance in fourth-grade math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress 鈥� the “Nation’s Report Card.”

But it鈥檚 not just New York. The relationship between school spending and student outcomes is weaker than you might imagine. To make the fairest comparison possible, I used the Education Law Center鈥檚 spending figures, which are adjusted for cost-of-living differences, and the from the Urban Institute.

The graph below shows the results for 2022, the latest year for which comparable spending figures are available. As you can see, New York is an extreme outlier: It spent more than any other state, and its results were in the bottom half. Other high-spending states like Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut also got pretty poor results given their investments.

Which states do well on this metric? Texas, Florida and Mississippi all stand out for getting strong student outcomes despite not spending that much.

What about staffing levels? Education is mostly a people business, and the bulk of school spending goes toward salaries and benefits. But staffing levels are also not well correlated with student outcomes.

The graph below shows the number of staffers for every 500 students 鈥� think of a typical elementary school 鈥� versus the same demographically adjusted fourth-grade math scores as above. Here, Vermont and Maine stand out as having exceptionally high staffing levels without positive student outcomes to show for them. Meanwhile, Mississippi, Texas and Florida all stand out as states showing strong student test scores without high levels of staffing.

These are merely correlations, and readers should not take these arguments too far. For example, Matt Ladner, a senior adviser for The Heritage Foundation, made the case in a that the states that increased spending the most over the last two decades did not see equivalently large achievement gains. But it would harm students in, say, New York or Vermont, if state policymakers decided that schools needed to cut back on spending or staffing.

That鈥檚 because the on school finances suggests that a $1,000 increase in annual per-student spending improves test scores by 0.008 standard deviations and boosts college-going rates by 2.8 percentage points. Infusions of federal ESSER funds produced similar, albeit smaller, effects. Perhaps no one was or is with the magnitude of the returns on increased spending for public schools, and the gains are small enough that you can鈥檛 just eyeball them on a chart, but they are statistically significant and academically meaningful. Moreover, this research shows that school spending does cause test scores to rise. It would be irresponsible for policymakers to ignore these general trends.

At the same time, it is fair to note that the gains from higher spending are small, and policy is not made in a vacuum. Some places, especially the Mountain West, probably could see real gains from higher spending. Meanwhile, other places, especially in the Northeast, could benefit from more time thinking about cost effectiveness and how to drive improvements without additional funds.

The best modern example of the latter is Mississippi. Mississippi is the poorest state in the country, and it would not have been a positive outlier on these types of charts 10 or 20 years ago. But since 2013, the state has put in place a number of policy changes, including new curricular materials, a muscular school accountability system focused on the students who are the furthest behind and a third grade reading requirement that brought greater attention to children who struggle with the basics. Some of these initiatives even cost money, but they didn鈥檛 add up to that much relative to the state鈥檚 overall education budget, and they helped students in Mississippi their peers in higher-spending states.

It’s hard to have these types of nuanced conversations when some advocates continue for more money, even in well-funded states and communities, while others have 鈥� and using 鈥� the modest gains from spending increases as evidence in favor of school choice or other reforms. For policymakers, the only way to correctly understand the nuances of school spending is to recognize that it matters while also understanding its limitations. 

Now, as the department boxes up its pens and pencils, key responsibilities are scheduled for scattering to, from Health and Human Services to the. Amid this reshuffling of federal furniture, however, one critical detail has been neglected: Who will track student outcomes?

Educators and policymakers from across the political spectrum caution that data systems such as IPEDS and assessments like National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are essential barometers of America鈥檚 educational health. Even Project 2025 cedes that the federal government should maintain 鈥溾�� abilities in education. As funding shifts to other agencies, it鈥檚 urgent that measurement moves with the money. Efficiency without evidence is mere guesswork, and America’s children deserve better than educated guesses.

Consider NAEP, which is written into federal law as a critical audit of whether our educational systems are serving students well. In February, the Trump administrationabruptly cancelled the test for 17-year-olds, bucking decades of uniform collection. This decision came just days after officials had assured the public that NAEP would not be impacted by budget cuts. 

A few weeks later, the department pulled the same stunt with money: A notice suddenly ordered states to liquidate whatever was left of their pandemic-relief funds that very day, freezing nearly $3 billion that districts had already earmarked. 

For now, pandemic relief funds , and for now, most of NAEP testing is back on schedule for 2026, with some conservative experts even proposing it be expanded to an annual schedule from a biennial schedule. But this cancel-then-revive whiplash has already forced , burning scarce time and taxpayer dollars that could have gone toward students.

These disruptions are part of a broader pattern: a systematic dismantling of the nation鈥檚 education data infrastructure. Many of the staff and contractors who compile crucial K鈥�12 databases such as the Common Core of Data (CCD) have been terminated. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which oversees these efforts, axed nearly everyone. Additionally, The Institute for Educational Sciences (IES) has been slashed to a staff that can鈥檛 鈥�.鈥�

While the administration promises that other agencies will disperse federal education dollars, we have received no such promise for the measurements needed to track the impact of these investments; currently, they seem to be abandoned.

All of this is happening at the worst possible time. America鈥檚 students are in an ongoing academic crisis, one that we can only grasp because of national data. After the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, test scores plummeted. According to NAEP results released last year, the average 13-year-old in the U.S. lost ground in both reading and math: scores fell by 4 points, and scores by 9 points compared to just before the pandemic. They are now at their lowest.

This is a moment when we need more educational measurement and transparency, not less. National exams like NAEP are 鈥渢he canary in the coal mine,鈥� alerting us to academic problems while there鈥檚 still time to act. Without a nationwide lens like NAEP, data warehouses as strong as the CCD and IPEDS, and research agencies dedicated to translating these results such as IES, such alarming trends couldn鈥檛 be convincingly demonstrated.

Likewise, the troves of school data that the Education Department aggregates allow educators and researchers to identify where progress is (or isn鈥檛) happening. If those data collections halt, we鈥檒l be stuck funding systems we can no longer evaluate, rewarding failure as easily as success. 

Fragmented, inconsistent state reporting is a recipe for lost information. We鈥檒l return to an era of patchwork statistics that can鈥檛 be compared or evaluated nationally, and the losers will be the students whose struggles are rendered invisible.

Other federal agencies certainly have the capacity to oversee large-scale, results-oriented programs. For decades, HHS has successfully administered, the federal early childhood education initiative. Precisely because it measures outcomes rigorously, Head Start has demonstrably improved for its participants, even now as it faces sweeping budget cuts. Similarly, HHS鈥檚 Children鈥檚 Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has systematically tracked child insurance rates, contributing to a sharp decline in the rate of  uninsured children from. These programs succeeded because funding came paired with robust outcome measurement.

If such agencies are to steward America’s K鈥�12 funding effectively, they must establish or absorb a dedicated educational data arm. One approach could be transferring NCES, preserving essential national assessments like NAEP and comprehensive data collections. Another might be forming an inter-agency task force specifically for education metrics. Even strong advocates of federalism recognize that comparable data across states is indispensable for judging progress; without it, monitoring becomesuneven and incomplete.

Dismantling the Department of Education is billed as streamlining governance. But true efficiency requires more dedicated outcome tracking, not less. When schools outcomes in the past, progress stalled and achievement gaps widened unnoticed. 

Federal data collection has exposed inequities affecting English learners and students with disabilities, problems states were compelled to address once revealed. Removing these accountability tools risks concealing rather than solving such critical issues.

Fiscal conservatives pride themselves on demanding receipts, progressives on demanding equity. Without national metrics, both lose their yardstick, and students lose most of all.

Illinois education officials are considering lowering the scores students need to get to be classified as proficient in a subject on a state standardized test.

They say the current benchmarks are too high and the results often don鈥檛 accurately reflect whether high school students are college and career ready.

鈥淥ur system unfairly mislabels students as 鈥榥ot proficient鈥� when other data 鈥� such as success in advanced coursework and enrollment in college 鈥� tell a very different story,鈥� state schools chief Tony Sanders to school leaders this week.

The Illinois State Board of Education agreed Wednesday to move ahead with a process to change the state鈥檚 testing system, though the exact details still are being worked out. That process will include creating new 鈥渃ut scores,鈥� or the lowest score needed for a student to be sorted into broad categories of achievement on state assessments.

If approved in August, the new cut scores would be applied to the tests taken by students this spring and reported publicly in October. The changes are likely to send the public a very different message about how students are doing on reading and math tests.

Proposed changes to the state鈥檚 testing system come at a time when schools in Illinois and around the country are still dealing with the academic fallout of the COVID pandemic. Other states, including Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Alaska, and New York, have made similar changes to their testing systems, according to 社区黑料.

Third to eighth graders in Illinois last year 鈥� even exceeding proficiency levels pre-pandemic 鈥� but math scores still lagged behind past years, according to the state鈥檚 2024 report card. .

State officials acknowledged Wednesday that it would be difficult to compare proficiency rates on the October 2025 report card to previous years if the benchmarks are lowered. The move would likely result in more students across the state being considered proficient on state standardized exams. For instance, if a test has 1,000 possible points a student can score and last year a student needed to score 700 or above to be considered proficient and they scored 680, but the following year the cut score moved to 650 that student would be considered proficient.

Sanders argued, however, that changes to the state鈥檚 testing system are long overdue.

In his message to school leaders this week, he said the state鈥檚 current benchmarks are some of the highest in the nation. He pointed to a by the National Center for Education Statistics that looked at how state accountability systems match up to NAEP, a national exam given periodically to a representative sample of American students in fourth and eighth grade. Illinois was among the states whose cut scores aligned with higher levels of performance on the national exam.

Sanders said in an interview with Chalkbeat that the cut scores for the college entrance exam have been higher than what the College Board, an organization that created and administers the SAT and Advanced Placement courses and exams, recommended as 鈥渃ollege ready鈥� on the SAT test in previous years 鈥� and that 鈥渋t just does not make sense.鈥�

鈥淲hen we look at how actual students are performing, we have so many examples of kids who have graduated, gone on to college, and persisted and been successful in college, yet, if they made decisions in their life based on the data that we gave them, they would never have gone to college,鈥� said Sanders.

Given that Illinois switched the high school test to the ACT, Sanders said the state board wants to ensure scores on the October 2025 report card accurately reflect where students are.

In changing the state鈥檚 testing system, state officials said they are aiming for greater 鈥渃oherence鈥� between assessments. Currently, there are different for the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, an exam taken by students in third to eighth grade in reading and math, the Illinois Science Assessment, taken by students in fifth, eighth, and 11th grades, and the high school college entrance exam, taken by students in 11th grade.

State officials also noted in from Wednesday鈥檚 board meeting that the state鈥檚 , or what students are expected to learn, would not change.

Jennifer Kirmes, director of policy at Advance Illinois, a nonprofit statewide advocacy organization, said that she believes there was a real call for change from school leaders, especially those teaching high school students, because some students were excelling in advanced classes but were classified as not proficient on state standardized tests.

鈥淏ut in fact, those students have lots of other indicators that they are, in fact, college and career ready, which is ultimately what we鈥檙e trying to measure at the high school level,鈥� said Kirmes. 鈥淭hey might have taken and passed several AP courses and exams, they might have dual credit.鈥�

Kirmes said getting proficiency levels right matters because schools are judged based on the results of standardized exams. In Illinois, schools as Exemplary, Commendable, Targeted, Comprehensive, and Intensive. Based on what a school is labeled can determine what resources and support they will receive from the state. Federal law provide summative designations to schools based on students鈥� test scores since the early 2000s. Sanders also told Chalkbeat that the state is working on changing the school accountability system for 2026.

Educators, testing experts, and advocates have mixed feelings about changing the state鈥檚 assessment standards. Some worry the new changes will not have any significant effect on teaching and students鈥� learning.

Monique Redeaux-Smith, from the Illinois Federation of Teachers, one of the state鈥檚 largest teacher unions, said the union is not opposed to changing the cut scores, but they are concerned about the weight placed on state standardized assessments. The tests don鈥檛 provide enough information for teachers about where students might need a helping hand, she said.

鈥淲hat teachers do in the classroom is more valuable because they鈥檙e actually seeing students explain. They鈥檙e actually seeing students show their work. They鈥檙e actually able to see where students might be getting stuck in their understanding,鈥� said Redeaux-Smith.

Paul Zavitkovsky, instructor and leadership coach at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said he doesn鈥檛 think the changes will affect student learning if teachers are not given good information from the tests.

鈥淯ntil we start reporting information from whatever kind of testing we do in a way that teachers, school level people look at and go, 鈥� 鈥楾his is much more useful in terms of helping me better understand what I am and am not doing well,鈥欌�� said Zavitkovsky.

In response to the criticism, Sanders said in an interview with Chalkbeat that state assessments are meant to generate the state report card and show how Illinois is performing. But he agrees that state assessments 鈥渨ill likely never be a useful tool to teachers to be able to improve their teaching.鈥�

The Illinois State Board of Education is hosting listening tours around the state for school leaders, educators, parents, students, and others interested in changes to the state assessments. The next one will take place at the Chicago World Language Academy.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.聽Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

The comment is a familiar one for a math teacher, as I hear it all the time from students and family members. But on this particular day, the source of the remark surprised me: I was at my school鈥檚 professional learning committee meeting, and the speaker was one of my long-tenured math teaching colleagues.

鈥淚 can鈥檛 learn new ways to teach this material, it would take so much work,鈥� he added.

 鈥淚sn鈥檛 that the job?鈥� I thought.

As a sixteen-year veteran of teaching high school math in Texas 鈥� everything from Pre-Algebra to AP Calculus 鈥� I am wary of curricular and pedagogical overhauls. I鈥檓 skeptical of anything that claims to 鈥渞einvent鈥� math instruction, since it is unlikely that some guru will come along for the first time in history with a silver bullet that instantly causes all my students to learn math flawlessly. 

But the opposite approach is more insidious. How presumptuous would it be to assume that teaching and learning cannot evolve, especially in this modern era of emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, and external factors like a pandemic and record globalization? 

If teachers are to be treated 鈥� and paid 鈥� like other professionals, educators like me must act like them. For example, physicians here in Texas must renew their licenses every two years, of continuing medical education. , it鈥檚 every five years with 105 hours of continuing legal education.

As a contrast, in my profession, many teachers are flat-out , often falling back on old-fashioned strategies and worksheets even while national standards like Advanced Placement . In the worst instances I have witnessed in my career, I have seen dated, stale 鈥減lug and play鈥� photocopies circulating in the staff workroom, often being frantically printed on the morning of delivery. How are teachers refining their instruction if they鈥檙e not even updating the date on the worksheet?

And here鈥檚 the rub: The old strategies aren鈥檛 necessarily working. We should be very concerned about the latest Nation鈥檚 Report Card in mathematics, which shows American students falling well short of expectations over the past decade . Some reports of this decline date back to before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Math proficiency is vital for all our students to be successful. The learning of math is a fair predictor of overall academic achievement, and even . Math teachers must step up to the challenge and prove ourselves to be on the vanguard of innovating math instruction, teaching students in the ways that 21st-century students learn.

Schools need to invest in math literacy as a core infrastructure for learning, focusing on math with the same zeal they take on reading. 

For starters, around 48% of schools have reading interventionists, yet of that figure (23%) have the equivalent for math. The schools that do not often rely on teachers meeting during non-instructional time, sometimes shepherded by administrators without expertise in the important and effective skill of .

At the school and district level, coordinators and instructional specialists need to be unafraid of research-supported innovations for kids to learn, especially approaches that are responsive to the current technological climate. In my district, we have adopted robust new curricula with extensive resources for teachers old and new and also hired consultants to work with teachers directly in their classrooms. 

There is no shortage of innovative and learnable EdTech available to districts, much of which allows students to explore math problems independently on their personal devices, while receiving immediate feedback. We just need to actively push and support teachers to implement them.

For specialists working with teachers like my dubious colleague, there are for resistance to change. In 1986, when the National Council of Mathematics recommended the use of calculators in school, a group of teachers with concern that this would leave 鈥渟tudents with no reason to learn computational skills.鈥� Yet now the calculator is one of many foundational tools that can aid math learning. Let鈥檚 not be on the wrong side of the picket line with the future of technology.

As for the way we talk about math writ large, has been so effective in changing hearts and minds, and it鈥檚 time for math to have its own moment. Effective math instruction is not an impossible dragon to slay.

This is decidedly not the time to continue falling back on 鈥渉ow we learned it when we were kids.鈥� We educators can and should be the ones who make math instruction and intervention more effective. The problem of math proficiency among American students is one we can absolutely, collectively solve. Let鈥檚 do better right now for our students in order to improve scores nationwide, so that our students are most prepared to solve the problems of their futures on the global stage.

For me and my fellow educators to shirk the opportunity to investigate new and best practices for our students would be tantamount to malpractice.

In particular, the Trump Administration could explore using the NAEP to promote greater transparency among schools, parents, and local communities, as well to enhance academic rigor and ensure genuine accountability in a comparable way across schools and states. That would mean replacing a disparate collection of state tests will a single national assessment administered to every fourth and eighth grade student every year.

Parents, educators, and state leaders agree that more information 鈥� not more bureaucracy 鈥� is needed to make informed decisions for their children and communities, as well as to foster greater competition. Making the NAEP a truly national assessment would provide this information in a consistent, credible, and actionable manner.

This would require a feasible restructuring of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to focus on the annual creation and implementation of the NAEP, in contrast to its previous biennial schedule. Additionally, states already have the infrastructure for standardized testing, as all 50 states administer various assessments. 

Some adjustments might be necessary for the reformed IES, which would need to collaborate with state offices responsible for test administration to successfully implement the NAEP on an annual basis for all eligible students, not just the current sample populations. However, there are still many advantages to this approach.

First, NAEP provides a consistent and academically rigorous measure of student performance. Many states report higher proficiency rates on their own assessments than on NAEP, creating a false sense of achievement. If all fourth and eighth grade students in states that receive federal Title I funding were required to take the NAEP annually, the discrepancy between state and national standards would become harder to ignore. States would have a stronger incentive to align their instructional practices with higher expectations.

States such as Mississippi have already shown what鈥檚 possible when NAEP results are taken seriously. Mississippi鈥檚 so-called 鈥�miracle鈥� 鈥� its leap into the top half of state rankings in 2020 and 2022鈥攄emonstrates the value of using NAEP-aligned standards as a driver for systemic change. By contrast, allowing states to accept federal funding without comparable transparency has led to low expectations and weak accountability frameworks.

Second, expanding NAEP would provide parents with a more accurate picture of how their children are performing relative to peers nationwide. Calls for greater in education 鈥� amplified during and after the pandemic 鈥� have made clear that many families want more than vague reassurances from schools. A truly national assessment would offer objective, comparable data without increasing testing burdens year after year. In its current form, NAEP tests only samples of students, providing no real insight into how individual students or schools are doing.

Third, this proposal could significantly reduce unnecessary s. To receive Title I funding under the , states must administer annual assessments from grades 3 through 8, a requirement that consumes substantial聽classroom time, financial and instructional resources.聽

If Congress eliminated this requirement and recommended that states administer only the NAEP in fourth and eighth grades, that could facilitate more targeted transparent evaluations and reduce assessment costs for states. Additionally, standardized tests administered from grades 3 to 8 may not be necessary for improving student outcomes. A study of test scores in showed that, on average, a student’s test scores in their first year correlated at a rate greater than 0.90 with their next year performance.

Finally, making NAEP universal would offer a balanced form of federal oversight: less intrusive than programmatic mandates, but more informative than current reporting requirements. If decentralization is the path forward for U.S. education, it must be accompanied by a shared yardstick to assess progress. A national benchmark can support local autonomy while enabling cross-district comparisons that inform parents, educators, and policymakers alike.

Federal initiatives to improve student outcomes have historically produced mixed results. The Obama-era effort to tie teacher evaluations to student performance had little impact at the national level, though districts like Dallas and Washington, D.C., saw promising gains. These cases suggest that policy tools must be both well-designed and responsive to local implementation contexts. 

Designating NAEP as the national assessment meets both criteria. It would offer the federal government a low-cost, high-impact mechanism for improving transparency and setting consistent expectations without dictating how states should teach or allocate resources 鈥攊t would be left up to them.

In an era of educational fragmentation, the NAEP stands out as a uniquely credible and underutilized tool. Repurposing it as the primary national assessment 鈥� administered annually to all 4th and 8th graders in states receiving Title I dollars 鈥� would promote transparency, reduce redundant testing, and align incentives around higher academic standards. This reform would offer a shared benchmark to evaluate progress across states and districts. At a time when parents, educators, and policymakers are calling for both accountability and flexibility, a restructured NAEP provides a rare opportunity to deliver both.

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Tuesday told a crowd of educators, tech executives and investors that public education in America is unsustainable, suggesting that the nation鈥檚 low literacy and math scores show it has 鈥済otten to a point that we just can’t keep going along doing what we’re doing.鈥�

Speaking at the annual ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, said, 鈥淟et’s shake it up. Let’s do something different. And it’s not through bureaucracy in Washington 鈥� that is not where it happens.鈥�

A small group of protesters picketed the appearance, but in the midmorning fireside talk, delivered to a receptive standing-room crowd, McMahon said the Trump administration鈥檚 plans to dismantle the education department won鈥檛 mean the end of bedrock funding streams like Title I for low-income children or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for students with disabilities.

鈥淭itle I funding isn’t stopping,鈥� she said, adding that funding for both programs would likely remain at the same levels moving forward, even if they shift to different agencies.

McMahon also said the department, which has fired about half of its staff in the first two-and-a-half months of Trump鈥檚 presidency, cancelled millions of dollars in research contracts and gutted in-house research efforts across the board, is studying revamping the Institute of Education Sciences. She also reassured the audience that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is 鈥渟omething we absolutely need to keep.鈥�

鈥淭his is what keeps us honest, because it’s comparing apples to apples鈥� nationwide.鈥� If we don’t, states can 鈥� be a little manipulative with their own results and their own testing. But I think it’s a way that we keep everybody honest.鈥�

But McMahon avoided talking about campus antisemitism and transgender athletes鈥� participation in women鈥檚 sports 鈥� two areas that the department is aggressively investigating.

Afterwards, McMahon sat for a brief interview with 社区黑料鈥檚 Greg Toppo, where she expanded on her thoughts about NAEP, immigrant students and how her background rebuilding companies in the corporate world has prepared her to revamp the department.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In order to dismantle the department, you have to convince seven Democrats in the Senate to get this done. What’s the plan? 

The plan is to help be partners. In fact, I had about a dozen Democrats in my office last week. I wanted to hear what they had to say. They wanted to share with me what their concerns were. I have said all along, and the President totally understands, that in order to close the Department of Education, it is an act of Congress. By the time we get to this point, hopefully they will see the benefits of education operating differently in our country. 

In your session earlier, you said NAEP is 鈥渟omething we absolutely need to keep.鈥� But the administration has cut the research division of the department. Is NAEP ready for some sort of radical reset? Are you going to have to pull back on what NAEP does? 

We need to re-look at NAEP. Is there a better way to do NAEP? We now do it in fourth and eighth grade every other year. Is that the best thing? It’s interesting how you just keep doing something over and over again, and until you start questioning, “Is this the best way to do it?” you don’t know if there is a better way. This may be the ultimate way to do it, but I do believe that people who are in this industry, there are those who can look at this and determine whether or not this is the right course to continue to take.

We may keep it the very same way that it is for a while, but we’re looking at it. How can you decide if you need to make change if you don’t investigate it a bit?

Last NAEP question: At this point, April 8, have we made any decisions about tests or lines of testing that are not going to be continued?

No. I mean, I think I just finished my fourth week on the job, or this is the fourth week on the job. So it’s a lot in motion at this particular time. But I just want to make clear, though, that we are doing things thoughtfully. Quickly, but thoughtfully.

I think the feeling that a lot of people have watching what’s happened with DOGE is that, yes, it’s been quick, but not so thoughtful. How do you reassure people that you’re doing things thoughtfully?

I’ve restructured companies before, a couple of times, and you do try to cut out fat and not muscle. Sometimes you have to cut some muscle. Sometimes you cut a little deeper into the muscle than you intended, and you realize, “That was too deep.” So you bring a couple of people back. I don’t think that’s necessarily chaotic. I think that is thoughtful. Who would have thought that you could actually bring in a really smart, innovative group to audit the federal government? 

I can only speak to the group I’ve worked with at the Department of Education. I have found them to be very savvy, very bright about how to look at the systems that they are looking at and determine where we could make cuts. I don’t find it to be chaotic, but I think whenever you’re acting swiftly and making announcements, it can seem chaotic. But it’ll settle.

I want to change gears a little bit, and ask about immigration. What role should schools play in enforcing federal immigration policy? 

Well, that’s not something that I’ve really delved into at Education. It’s so interesting. People ask me about the Department of Education. It doesn’t educate anyone. It doesn’t set curriculum. It doesn’t decide what books you’re going to use or hire teachers or administrators or any of that. But I think that schools have to obey the law.

Should undocumented children be entitled to free and appropriate public education? 

I think we have to follow the law with that.

But the law says, “Yes.”

Until the laws change, then we’re following the law, or the schools in those states are following the law. I’m certainly not instituting any of that.

In terms of civil rights, the regional offices have been cut back quite a bit. And just considering that you’re really aggressively pursuing anti-semitism and Title IX cases, how are you going to do this effectively with so many fewer people in the actual regions? 

If you notice, it’s a joint task force. We’re doing it with the Attorney General. We’re doing it with HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services) and we’re doing it with GSA [the General Services Administration]. It’s a joint task force combining resources to do some of this.

So you feel like that’s essentially making up for the fewer people you have in Civil Rights?

To some extent, yes.  

If all goes according to plan, if you are the dog that catches the bus, as they say… 

If I fire myself?

If Congress approves dismantling the department, do you see yourself out of a job in a year?

I’m not really set on a timeline right now. Clearly the President would like to see this accomplished as efficiently and quickly as possible. But we want to make sure that everything is in place, that there’s nothing that’s going to slip through the cracks. All of the funding will stay in place for Title I, and for our special ed and our handicapped special needs students, and to make sure that we have our Office of Civil Rights working with other offices. Or it could be totally melded into another agency.

And also, one of the biggest areas, about a third of the budget at the Department of Education, is management of student loans. And the President’s already talked about some role for SBA [the Small Business Administration], or a pretty large role by Treasury. 

So a year?

I’m not going to guess on a timeframe.

What would be appropriate?

When we get the job done. 

So there’s no timeline at all?

As efficient and as quickly as we can get it done.

Anything I haven’t asked you that you wanted to talk about?

There is a bottom line here, and that is to make sure 鈥� this is the President’s wish 鈥� that we give children equal access to quality education. The test scores that we’ve seen on NAEP are totally unacceptable. What we’ve been doing isn’t working. We have to do something different. We have to do it better. And his expectation is that we put in place what can help it be the best it can be. 

And you have a plan for that?

We’re working on the plan for that.

Congratulations and welcome to a place we once knew well. You face any number of tough challenges on behalf of American students, parents, educators and taxpayers, as well as the administration you serve, but your 鈥淒epartment鈥檚 Final Mission鈥� shows that you鈥檙e well prepared to meet them. We particularly admire your commitment to making American education 鈥渢he greatest in the world.鈥�

But how will we 鈥� and you, and our fellow Americans 鈥� know how rapidly we鈥檙e getting there? By now, you鈥檙e probably aware that the single most important activity of the department you lead is the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known to some as NAEP and to many as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card.

That鈥檚 the primary gauge by which we know how American education is doing, both nationally and in the states to which you rightly seek to restore its control.

Almost four decades ago 鈥� during Ronald Reagan鈥檚 second term 鈥� it was our job to modernize that key barometer of student achievement. Five years after A Nation at Risk told Americans that their education system was far from the world鈥檚 greatest, state leaders 鈥� governors especially 鈥� craved better data on the performance of their students and schools. And they were right. At the time, they had no sure way of monitoring that performance.

That was one of our challenges, back in the day. Advised by a blue-ribbon study group led by outgoing Tennessee governor (and future U.S. senator) Lamar Alexander, and with congressional cooperation spearheaded by the late Ted Kennedy, in 1988 we proposed what became a bipartisan transformation of an occasional government-sponsored test into a regular and systematic appraisal of student achievement in core academic subjects, administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (part of your Institute for Education Sciences) and overseen by an independent group of state and local leaders, plus educators and the general public. (One of your responsibilities is appointing several terrific people each year to terms on the 26-member National Assessment Governing Board.) 

That 1988 overhaul made three big changes:

• Creation of that independent board to ensure the data鈥檚 integrity, accuracy and utility;
  
• Inauguration of state-level reporting of student achievement in grades 4, 8 and 12, i.e. at  the ends of elementary, middle and high school; and
  
• Authorization for the board to set standards 鈥� known as achievement levels 鈥� by which to know whether that achievement is satisfactory.

Much else was happening in U.S. education at the time: School choice was gaining traction. States were setting their own academic standards and administering their own assessments. Graduation requirements were rising as the economy modernized and its human capital needs increased. 

As these and other reforms gathered speed, NAEP became the country鈥檚 most trusted barometer of what was (and wasn鈥檛) working. You alluded to NAEP data during your confirmation hearing. President Donald Trump deploys it when referencing the shortcomings of U.S. schools. For example, his Jan. 29 executive order on school choice began this way: 鈥淎ccording to this year鈥檚 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 70% of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72% were below proficient in math.鈥�

Everybody relies on NAEP data, and its governing board鈥檚 standards have become the criteria by which states gauge whether their own standards are rigorous enough. Just the other day, Gov. Glenn Youngkin鈥檚 board of education used them to benchmark Virginia鈥檚 tougher expectations for students and .

Reading and math were, and remain, at the heart of NAEP, but today it also tests civics, U.S. history, science and other core subjects 鈥� exactly as listed in your speech.

But NAEP is not perfect. It needs another careful modernization. It should make far better use of technology, including artificial intelligence. It should be nimbler and more efficient. The procedures by which its contractors are engaged need overhauling. (The Education Department鈥檚 whole procurement process needs that, too 鈥� faster, more competitive, more efficient, less expensive!)

Yet NAEP also needs to do more. Today, for instance, it gives state leaders their results only in grades 4 and 8, not at the end of high school. It doesn鈥檛 test civics and history nearly often enough, and never in 12^th grade, even though most systematic study of those subjects occurs in high school. (It probably tests fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math too often 鈥� the result of a different federal law.) 

Doing more shouldn鈥檛 cost any more. Within NAEP鈥檚 current budget 鈥� approaching $200 million, a drop in the department鈥檚 murky fiscal ocean 鈥� much more data should be gettable by making new contracts tighter and technology smarter, squeezing more analysis from NAEP鈥檚 vast trove and having staffers put shoulders to the wheel. (Former IES director Mark Schneider has the .)  But making this happen will take strong executive leadership, an agile, hardworking governing board and your own oversight. You may decide it鈥檚 time for another blue-ribbon group to take a close look at NAEP and recommend how to modernize it again without losing its vital ability to monitor changes over time in student achievement.

Yes, this is all sort of wonky. NAEP results get used all the time, but it鈥檚 far down in the bureaucracy and doesn鈥檛 make much noise. Nobody in Congress (as far as we know) pays it much attention. Yet it remains 鈥� we believe 鈥� the single most important activity of your department. Which, frankly, is why it needs your watchful attention! 

We wish you well in your new role. Please let us know if we can help in any way.

Sincerely, 

William J. Bennett, U.S. Secretary of Education (1985-88)

Chester E. Finn Jr., Assistant Secretary for Research & Improvement and Counselor to the Secretary (1985-88) 

Results from the 2024 (NAEP) showed that only a third of students are reading at grade level. On the International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an international assessment of math skills in 64 countries, American math achievement dropped 18 points for fourth graders and 27 points for eighth graders between 2019 and 2024. In both grades, American students were outperformed by peers in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and many European nations. 

Lawmakers need to take action to drastically improve student outcomes, and President Donald Trump鈥檚 promises to put parents in the driver鈥檚 seat and ensure states are in control of their education policymaking could be good steps in that direction. But a few federal K-12 education policies are mission-critical and should remain in place to fuel this effort. 

One is the federal requirement that all states administer annual tests that measure learning for every student in third to eighth grades and once in high school. This critical backstop protects states from powerful special-interest groups seeking to eliminate the transparent information about student achievement that state tests provide.       

Massachusetts鈥� November election results demonstrate the power of these groups. The Massachusetts Teachers鈥� Association reportedly contributed over $7 million to the campaign to eliminate the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), which measures 10th graders鈥� knowledge of English, math and science as a graduation requirement. 

Although most students pass the MCAS on their first attempt, the union pointed to the achievement gap among groups of students surfaced by test results as a reason to eliminate it. In November, voters approved a ballot measure to eliminate the MCAS as a graduation requirement, effectively weakening high school diplomas for all students in the commonwealth.

Unlike report cards and observations, which are subjective, statewide assessments are the only source of objective and comparable information about student performance. These exams provide policymakers and the American public with important insights on America’s readiness as a nation to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. 

These assessments also supply parents with transparent information about how well their child is being served. State tests provide apples-to-apples comparisons about the performance of a school relative to others 鈥� information that is essential for enabling families to make informed decisions about what鈥檚 best for their children.

Arguments against testing often focus on the ways in which educators respond to assessments by narrowing the curriculum, but those issues point to a lack of instructional leadership, which is not resolved by eliminating a test. Others complain about the inability of annual state tests to provide timely data to help inform day-to-day instruction. While very important, this is not the purpose of yearly assessments. Rather, a continuum of tests, including benchmarking exams and daily knowledge checks, ought to be used to inform school- and classroom-level instruction.

Finally, there are those who simply don鈥檛 like the results of the assessments and seek to eliminate them rather than using them to ensure learning for all students. This is a little like blaming a thermometer for a fever. As a nation, America cannot afford to hide from the truth. The nation’s education system needs to improve, and assessments are the way to measure progress. 

Without statewide assessments, parents, educators and policymakers lose access to clear, comparable information about student performance. This will not prepare children better; it will hurt them. It will not empower parents to make informed choices about their children鈥檚 education, but rather obscure critical information. The federal requirement for states to administer annual assessments provides important cover against special interests’ efforts to eliminate transparency.

Now more than ever, all students should have access to an education that will prepare them for the 21st century. As the Trump administration works to connect the dots among education, the workforce and the economy, it can empower state leaders and parents by continuing the federal requirement for statewide annual assessments. This federal role is the best way to protect systems from special interest groups and ensure policymakers, parents and the American public have the clear, transparent, meaningful data they need about how well students are learning.

Those findings emerge out of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card. Amid an otherwise-disastrous release of fourth- and eighth-grade scores last month, experts hailed the emergence of a new hierarchy of educational excellence that largely runs through the South.

There鈥檚 a catch, however: That revised national leaderboard is visible only after researchers account for the wide variety of student populations in each state. to the 2024 NAEP were produced by the left-leaning Urban Institute, which has long applied statistical controls to scores in an attempt to develop a more precise understanding of how well schools are teaching children. 

At the heart of the effort is an acknowledgment that student demographics are not evenly sorted across state borders. Black students live across the Deep South, while English language learners are to be found near the Mexican border. Perhaps most prominently, rates of child poverty below the Mason-Dixon line than above. Higher or lower concentrations of these student groups, which have all historically posted lower NAEP scores, can heavily sway states鈥� performance in ways that may not accurately represent the quality of their schools and teachers, said Matthew Chingos, Urban鈥檚 vice president for education. 

Adjusting for demographic traits produces 鈥渕ore of an apples-to-apples comparison鈥� between different parts of the country, he added.

鈥淚f you want to go to a random state, ask a fourth-grader a math question, and have the highest chance of them getting it right, you鈥檒l probably be fine going to the place with the most white, high-income kids,鈥� Chingos said. 鈥淏ut if you want to randomly place a kid in the state where he’ll learn the most, then this list is a better approximation of that.”

To reach that approximation, Chingos and co-author Kristin Blagg used NAEP鈥檚 national data to compare test takers in each state directly against those of the same age, gender, race, socioeconomic background, special education status, and English language learner designation. These calculations effectively simulate a world in which Hispanic students, for example, are as plentiful in Maine as in Arizona. 

The consequent shifts are surprising. 

In NAEP鈥檚 raw (statistically unweighted) scores for fourth-grade math, the one subject in which American students made significant gains over the last two years, the top 10 states were Massachusetts, Florida, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Texas, and New Jersey. But only four of those (Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, and Indiana) remained among the top 10 in Urban鈥檚 estimates. Strikingly, New Hampshire and North Dakota actually fell to the 11th- and 12th-worst in the country after controlling for demographics. 

Inter-state contrasts can be even more stark. New Jersey eighth graders earned an average reading score of 266 second-best in the U.S.), while their peers in Arkansas scored 255 (tied for tenth from the bottom). In Chingos and Blagg鈥檚 report, however, the two states are nearly identical.

Among all states, Urban measured Mississippi 鈥� which underwent a much-celebrated academic revival over the past decade 鈥� as receiving the highest adjusted scores in fourth- and eighth-grade math, as well as fourth-grade reading. It nearly grabbed the top spot in eighth-grade reading for good measure, finishing just behind Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Georgia. A (illustrated and by education advocate Marc Porter Magee) also placed Texas, Indiana, Florida, South Carolina, Illinois, and Kentucky among the top states after averaging all four age/subject combinations.

Carrie Conaway, a senior lecturer at Harvard who previously served as chief research officer at Massachusetts鈥檚 state education agency, said that both raw and adjusted scores provide an important lens on the true extent of learning. But when local leaders want to benchmark their results against other states鈥�, she added, Urban鈥檚 release is 鈥渢he only way to do it.鈥�

鈥淚t’s not that one measurement is better than the other, it’s that each question comes with a different set of assumptions and conclusions you could draw,鈥� Conaway said. 鈥淏ut I do think that more people are interested in the question of whose system is the best, independent of demographics.”

A matter of perspective

The unavoidable reality is that states must educate the students who actually enroll in their schools. No amount of empirical maneuvering will change those headline numbers.

Yet Urban鈥檚 alternative perspective undoubtedly reflects some authentic improvements in school outcomes. Not only did the adjusted scores for Louisiana rank second only to Mississippi, the state also saw some of the fastest-growing raw scores on the 2024 round of NAEP 鈥� including the only significant ascent in elementary literacy anywhere in the United States since 2019.

Those strides have accompanied the implementation of of reading instruction that was consciously modeled after strategies first adopted by Mississippi. But it is difficult to identify which factors led directly to better achievement, Chingos said, arguing that any theories about how learning gains were accomplished would have to allow for the fact that states 鈥渉ave done a whole bunch of things over a long period of time.鈥�

鈥淚n Florida, was it the , the , or something else? In Massachusetts, was it or the ? You seldom see a clean story like in Mississippi, where they did a big overhaul of reading instruction, and they saw reading scores go way up,” he said.

Some also question the importance of rankings themselves. Derek Briggs, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who specializes in student evaluation, said that he was more interested in examining the rise or fall of scores over time rather than states鈥� comparative positioning on a list. Adjustments like Urban鈥檚 have value as a way of delving into the results of a one-time exam, he continued, but they are ultimately less useful in the context of NAEP, which tracks each state鈥檚 performance going back to the 1970s.

鈥淚f the perspective you’re taking is to look at trends and change over time, then in some sense, it doesn’t matter that certain states begin in different positions,鈥� said Briggs. 鈥淵es, you can see that the states are in different spots in the original year, but what you really want to focus on is the change.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Chingos conceded that top-down ordering is 鈥渁lways a little weird,鈥� particularly in the middle of the rankings, because changes of just a point or two in either direction can meaningfully alter how states perceive and present themselves. While he and his colleagues try to communicate the complex ways in which academic reality can be obscured by demographics, the response of state leaders is typically more predictable.

“The states that get adjusted up love this,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he states that get adjusted down ignore it.鈥�

鈥榃e take seriously our role as leaders鈥�

Few will have the option of ignoring the decline in student learning over the last decade, which worsened dramatically during the COVID era. According to a district-level study of the NAEP results conducted by researchers at Harvard and Stanford, just 6 percent of American students live in school districts where math and reading levels are higher than they were in 2019. And in areas with large numbers of minority and low-income students.

With the from Washington, states are attempting to launch an academic recovery that will accelerate growth for the kinds of student populations that feature prominently in the Urban Institute鈥檚 analysis. While their paths to improvement may not be easy to emulate, top-scoring states provide a model for stragglers. 

John White served as Louisiana鈥檚 superintendent of education between 2012 and 2020, when local schools 鈥� historically some of the lowest-performing in the country 鈥� . In an interview, he said he believed that states like Louisiana were able to reach disadvantaged student populations through assertive K鈥�12 oversight led by governors, legislatures and state education agencies. Many others embodied a more 鈥減assive鈥� approach that largely centered on dispensing resources to schools and districts, he argued.

鈥淚f you look at the states at the top of the Urban Institute list, you would have to say that it’s almost synonymous with those that have said, ‘We take seriously our role as leaders of classroom- and school-level change, and we don’t see ourselves just as rule makers and check writers,’鈥� White observed.

While significant differences exist among successful school systems, White said, the unifying element is usually a leadership class that willingly embraces its role as a guarantor of student success. Those responsibilities extend to the selection of high-quality curricula, the provision of teacher training in domains like the science of reading, and the maintenance of high standards and accountability for schools and teachers. 

In a recent essay, literacy advocate Karen Vaites Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama as beacons of reading growth for the rest of the country to follow. White agreed the region has gained momentum in recent years, adding that the 鈥済olden age鈥� of education reform was by Southern governors like Bill Clinton in Arkansas, Jim Hunt in North Carolina, and the Bush brothers in Texas and Florida. Along with strong state leadership, he said, particular features like unelected state superintendents and county-level school districts likely explain some of their progress. 

To policymakers in states that have struggled to boost student success, and particularly those whose NAEP scores fall after demographic adjustments, he recommended that the challenge be 鈥渢aken seriously.鈥�

鈥淚f you’re the state chief in a place like that, the question in front of you is how to use the tools you have to systematize a long-term approach to change,鈥� he concluded. 鈥淚 don’t see any evidence 鈥� and Massachusetts has proven so for decades 鈥� that you can’t systematize improvement over multiple years.鈥�

Virginia students may soon face tougher academic benchmarks as the state aligns its performance levels with the higher standards of a national assessment.

Starting next month, the Virginia Board of Education will begin adjusting its cut scores 鈥� used to determine whether K-12 students are meeting proficiency levels 鈥� to better match the rigor of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Student performance is typically categorized as 鈥渂elow basic,鈥� 鈥渂asic,鈥� 鈥減roficient鈥� or鈥渁dvanced,鈥� reflecting their knowledge and skills in core subjects.

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Since 1998, Virginia has relied on its Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments to gauge proficiency in areas like reading and math. However, NAEP, a widely recognized national organization, has often been used to assess smaller student groups, such as fourth and eighth graders.

鈥淭he NAEP assessment provides a common benchmark that states can then use to look at the relative rigor of their own assessment cut scores,鈥� said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, during a work session Wednesday.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin鈥檚 administration has frequently pointed to NAEP data to highlight what it calls the 鈥渉onesty gap鈥� 鈥� the disparity between state-level proficiency standards and the more stringent NAEP benchmarks.

Between 2017-2022, Virginia鈥檚 fourth-grade reading and math results showed a staggering 40-percentage-point gap between the state鈥檚 SOL and NAEP assessments. That disparity does not provide an 鈥渁ccurate picture of student performance,鈥� said Em Cooper, deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, during Wednesday鈥檚 work session.

In response, the board has begun discussing plans to revise the cut scores 鈥� the threshold for determining student proficiency 鈥� in key subjects. The effort is a cornerstone of Youngkin鈥檚 broader push to 鈥渞estore excellence in education,鈥� which includes raising standards in core subjects, increasing transparency and accountability, and overhauling the state鈥檚 assessment system.

Youngkin has argued that Virginia鈥檚 current proficiency standards are the result of the previous Board of Education lowering cut scores and altering school accreditation standards.

However, Anne Holton, a former state education secretary and an appointee of former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, defended the previous board鈥檚 approach. She noted that Virginia鈥檚 pass rates aligned with the NAEP鈥檚 鈥渂asic鈥� achievement level, which reflects 鈥減artial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at a given grade,鈥� according to NAEP.

The Youngkin administration, however, is pushing for Virginia to meet NAEP鈥檚 鈥減roficient鈥� standard 鈥� defined as a student demonstrating a deeper understanding of complex topics and the ability to apply them in real-world situations.

Board member Amber Northern, a Youngkin appointee, argued that achieving NAEP proficiency is linked to better long-term outcomes, including higher graduation rates and increased job earnings compared to students who score at the NAEP 鈥渂asic鈥� level.

鈥淣AEP proficiency matters in terms of long-term outcomes for kids [and] I know this because I study it,鈥� Northern said.

She dismissed political finger-pointing over the state鈥檚 current standards, urging the board to focus on the benefits of higher expectations.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 care about the politics, I don鈥檛 care about 鈥榳ell we did this, and we did this,鈥� 鈥� nobody knows why we are in the situation we鈥檙e in, we just know that we鈥檙e in it and we鈥檙e not about pointing fingers. What we鈥檙e about saying is, okay, this is what NAEP proficiency does for our kids, and we should actually have that as our goal to do right by them.鈥�

But Holton pushed back, questioning whether realigning Virginia鈥檚 SOL to match NAEP would lead to actual student improvement. While she acknowledged that strong SOL and NAEP scores correlate with better outcomes, she argued that no research supports the idea that adjusting cut scores alone drives success.

鈥淭he research shows there鈥檚 no impact of realigning our cut scores,鈥� Holton said. 鈥淲e need our students to do well on the test, but where the line is is irrelevant.鈥�

The process

Previously, cut score adjustments went through a multi-step review involving a standard-setting committee, an articulation committee, and the state superintendent before final recommendations were presented to the Board of Education.

On Wednesday, the Virginia Department of Education staff outlined the board鈥檚 new approach, which includes selecting and training committee members, assessment date, and ultimately making recommendations on cut scores.

Under the process proposal, committees will primarily consist of education experts, including teachers and instructional specialists, while the remainder will include community stakeholders such as parents and business leaders.

Educators applying to serve must complete an application demonstrating their understanding of grade level content and assessments. Community members will undergo a selection process led by the board and the governor鈥檚 office.

The committees are set to convene in late May once enough assessment data from the 2025 assessment cycle is available. Their proposed cut scores will go before the board for an initial review in June, with a final decision expected in July.

On Thursday, the board will on the proposed review process. If approved, the updated performance standards will not take effect until spring 2026.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.