The percent of 8th grade blacks who are below basic in math on NAEP rose to 62 in 2022 from 48 in 2013; Hispanics, to 51 from 38; and whites, to 26 from 16.
Various international assessments also confirm this serious downward trend that began well before Covid-19.
While I haven’t the space here to cite data for all grades in math and reading, we should be clear that, even while acknowledging that math gains exceeded reading, students made significant progress over the first years of the past quarter century. In 4th grade reading, for example, from 2000 to 2015, test scores for all students went to 223 from 213, a grade-level gain, only to lose 5 points by 2022.
(To combat this conclusion, some cite college entrance exam scores to “prove” things have gotten worse. False. Comparing apples to apples, with comparability in participation rates by race, class, and numbers, results have been as good or better in recent times, with the exception again of the last ten years.