The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the National Report Card, released comprehensive information Monday for the first time since 2019, after the 2021 exams were postponed for a year.
NAEP evaluated a representative pattern of fourth- and eighth-graders and found that grades had returned to 1992 levels. Mathematics has returned to 2003 levels.
A quarter of fourth-graders and nearly four-in-ten eighth-graders failed fundamental concepts.
“This is a de facto moment for education,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told reporters. “How we respond to this will not only affect our recovery, but also our nation’s standing in the world. “
Previous studies have shown that schools closed due to COVID-19 restrict students’ learning opportunities, affecting low-income families and ethnic minorities the most.
The pandemic has also worsened outcomes in other respects, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which organizes the tests.
These come with an increase in the number of academics seeking intellectual fitness services, absenteeism, violence and school disruption, cyberbullying, and shortage of instructors across the country.
“The eighth-graders who took NAEP last spring are in the best school today,” Beverly Perdue, chair of the National Evaluation Board, said in a statement.
“We want to invest in education so that resources and supports are in a position to boost student learning and close the gaps that preceded, but were exacerbated during, the pandemic. “
The effects of the most recent scorecard showed that the pandemic has widened the gap between the wiser and the worse off.
African-American and Hispanic academics experienced greater drops in score than their white fourth-grade math peers.
Economist Emily Oster tweeted graph research indicating that states that maintained higher degrees of in-person learning in the 2020-21 school year saw smaller decreases in average math scores than those with more virtual learning.
California and Hawaii are notable exceptions to the trend.
Angie Schmitt, a mother of two from Cleveland, told AFP that the school closure factor became too politicized at the beginning of the pandemic.
Private schools remained open while public schools, especially in liberal areas, were closed.
“A lot of Democrats came up with rationalizations for that, but I don’t think they were very convincing,” said Schmitt, who describes himself as left-wing.