Recently, new national data confirmed what educators, parents, and other studies have warned about for months: The pandemic has massively disrupted students鈥� learning.
Long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 9-year-old students scored, on average, five points lower in reading and seven points lower in math in 2022 than did their pre-pandemic peers in 2020. The declines represent the largest drops in decades.
The results underscore the steep challenge ahead for schools as the 2022-23 year begins. But NAEP data are notoriously hard to interpret. Here are five key takeaways from the data release, how to make sense of the findings, and what NAEP can鈥攁nd can鈥檛鈥攊lluminate about the effects of the past two years.
1. This is a substantial decline.
When the results came out, Peggy G. Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the NAEP, called the score drops 鈥渟obering.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that COVID-19 shocked American education and stunted the academic growth of this age group of children,鈥� she said.
But it can be hard to understand exactly what these score declines mean from looking at the numbers alone. Reading scale scores dropped from 220 to 215; math scores dropped from 241 to 234. It鈥檚 easy to ask: Is an average loss of less than 10 points in each case really that big of a deal on a scale of hundreds?
Researchers, both at NCES and outside of the agency, emphatically say yes.
Sean Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford University, said that a 13-point decline鈥攖he amount that Black students lost in math鈥攃an be thought of as about equivalent to a year of schooling.
鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 mean that kids forgot a year鈥檚 worth of things, because these are different kids,鈥� he said. Instead, it means that 9-year-old Black students in 2022 are about a year behind where 9-year-old Black students were in 2020.
The scale scores represent real skills. For instance, 9-year-olds who score around the 200 level in math can typically add 2-digit numbers and know basic multiplication skills, Carr said in a briefing on the results.
But as the NAEP data show, math scores have shifted downward. Fewer of the 9-year-olds in 2022 are fluent in these skills鈥攁dding 2-digit numbers and basic multiplication鈥攖han their same-age peers were just two years ago.
This decline in scores is new for 9-year-olds鈥� long-term trend data. For the past two decades, student scores have gradually trended up before flattening right before the pandemic.
These new 2022 scores are similar to those seen about two decades ago. But Carr cautioned that this doesn鈥檛 mean those years of upward progress are gone for good. 鈥淚 think recovery is a real reality here, and we need to look to the future,鈥� she said.
But will it take another 20 years to raise scores once again? Students scores by 2020 were the result of years of increases, including big jumps during the late 1990s through mid-2000s.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the wrong question,鈥� Reardon said. 鈥淭he question is: What鈥檚 going to happen for these [9-year-old] kids over the next years of their lives?鈥�
Children born now will, hopefully, attend school without the kinds of major, national disruptions that children who were in school during the pandemic faced. Most likely, scores for 9-year-olds will be back to normal relatively soon, Reardon said. Instead, he said, we should look to future scores for 13-year-olds, which will present a better sense of how much ground these current students have gained.
And Carr emphasized that the goal shouldn鈥檛 just be a return to the pre-pandemic status quo, noting that NAEP scores already showed big gaps between higher- and lower-performers before COVID. 鈥淥ne has to ask themselves: 鈥榬ecovery,鈥� what does that mean, to go back to where we were before? I don鈥檛 think we want to go back to where we were before 鈥� we want to do better,鈥� she said.
2. Declines in math were more sweeping than declines in reading鈥攆ollowing an established pandemic trend.
Reading scores in the long-term trend assessment were mixed: On average, scores fell 5 points. But among some subgroups鈥攕tudents in cities, students in states in the West鈥攖hey held steady. The drop in math scores was more pervasive, affecting more subgroups across the board.
These results are in line with other pandemic-era reports on student learning and progress. Analyses of interim tests given periodically in some classrooms from the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years have found that students are further behind their pre-pandemic peers in math than in reading.
Another study of interim test data found that students who were on grade level in reading at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year stayed on track throughout the spring and fall 2021鈥攂ut that wasn鈥檛 true in math. In math, all students, even those who started the 2020-21 school year on grade level, improved at a slower rate during the pandemic.
It鈥檚 hard to know why math seems to be more affected than reading by school disruptions. It could be because math is almost exclusively taught in schools, unlike the reading practice kids get on their own at home. 鈥淥ne hypothesis 鈥� is that research has shown that math is more uniquely influenced by what happens in school,鈥� Martin West, the academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education said in a public briefing. (He is also a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the exam.)
These data do suggest that schools should focus on supporting students鈥� math skills, but not at the expense of reading or other subjects, said Christy Hovanetz, a senior policy fellow for accountability and assessment at ExcelinEd, an advocacy group founded by Jeb Bush, Florida鈥檚 former governor. 鈥淚f you look at the trends from the previous years before COVID, they were stagnant鈥� in math and in reading, she said.
3. Gaps between higher-performing and lower-performing students are widening.
Students at all levels lost ground during the past two years, but lower-performing students saw the biggest drops.
鈥淭here has been more impact over the last two years for those who are already struggling the most,鈥� Carr said.
These results are the continuation of a trend in NAEP data鈥攖he gap between higher-performing and lower-performing students is getting wider. Just what is causing that is unclear, but there are some clues: Lower-performing students on the test were also less likely to report that they had support鈥攍ike reliable internet access, or interaction with a teacher鈥攖han their higher-performing peers.
And just as the academic effects of the pandemic have been distributed unequally, so have the consequences for student mental health鈥攁 factor that greatly shapes children鈥檚 ability to learn and engage in school.
Over the course of the past two years, experts have stressed the intertwined nature of academic achievement and social-emotional support, and have argued that academic recovery efforts must also attend to students鈥� mental health and feelings of belonging in school.
鈥淚 would be surprised if this was a permanent shock,鈥� said Reardon, referring to the overall downward NAEP trend. But, he added, 鈥渢he big worry is that this exacerbated inequality, and will the rebounds be unequal?鈥�
4. Some students鈥� scores didn鈥檛 decline, but it鈥檚 hard to know why.
Results from some student subgroups don鈥檛 match the general downward trend. In a few instances, scores held steady.
Reading scores for students in cities stayed constant, as did reading scores for students in the West of the country. English-language learners also maintained their scores in reading between 2020 and 2022. In both subjects, there were no significant changes for Asian, Native American, or multiracial students.
The long-term trend data alone can鈥檛 explain why this is the case. Take the finding about reading scores in cities. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 really have any national city-specific [education] policies, so it鈥檚 just really difficult to ascertain what is it that makes cities different,鈥� Hovanetz said.
Later this fall, NAEP plans to release test results from its main reading and math assessments in grades 4 and 8. These results will show national data, but also break out scores by state and for city districts that are part of the Trial Urban District Assessment, or TUDA. They could show some of the patterns in more detail.
Nevertheless, claims that specific policy decisions in one state or district caused lower or higher scores often rest on a shaky foundation. NAEP data can show where scores are going up or down, but the test can鈥檛 say why.
In general, it鈥檚 hard to link certain pandemic policies to these overall results, said West, of NAGB. That hasn鈥檛 stopped commentators from offering theories based on other research.
For example, studies show a . But the pandemic also brought mental health challenges for children, parents lost their jobs, and many kids had family members die from the virus. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think these data can tell us much about which of these pathways were most important,鈥� West said.
Hastily stood-up virtual learning programs, illness, parental job loss: 鈥淭here鈥檚 lots of reasons to think all of those things matter,鈥� Reardon agreed.
5. Where do schools go from here?
In a statement following the data鈥檚 release, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said that the long-term trend results should 鈥渟erve as a further call to action鈥� for states and districts to use COVID-relief funding 鈥渜uickly, effectively, and on strategies we know work.鈥� School systems have to use the funds by the end of 2024.
District leaders say that they need more time鈥攖hat extending the deadline for spending these funds would allow them to continue providing academic recovery support for longer. In a recent survey from AASA, the School Superintendents鈥� Association, many district leaders said that the 2024 deadline would require them to cut staff and end academic enrichment programs like summer learning that could have otherwise continued.
Hovanetz, of ExcelinEd, believes schools may need to retool their central instructional approach. She noted again that NAEP scores had been flat even before the pandemic. 鈥淲hatever you鈥檙e going to be doing now shouldn鈥檛 be a quick fix remedy, it should be a change in the core of how you鈥檙e doing things.鈥�
Even school districts that are trying to make these kinds of changes have struggled.
For instance, some systems have embraced the idea of accelerated learning鈥攈elping students access grade-level work by backfilling missed content and skills as needed, rather than going back to remediate entire grades worth of work. But leaders say adopting this approach in a school system that hasn鈥檛 used it before requires teacher training and planning time to make it successful.
