The national test considered the gold standard of whether schoolchildren are gaining or slipping has delivered alarming news: Kids are backsliding in both math and reading. Thirteen-year-olds assessed in the fall of 2022 scored about the same in reading as those who took the test in 1971, when it was first administered. Math scores were at levels not seen since 1992.
Pile this atop now incontrovertible evidence that COVID was a seismic event that shook the foundations of teaching and learning for young people from coast to coast, as millions struggled to learn remotely and social and psychological problems mounted.
The score slide is more than just a number. It means far fewer of our youngest teenagers can multiply two-digit numbers by three-digit numbers or identify a character’s feelings in a short reading passage. Scores fell for kids at all percentiles — but especially for those already at the bottom. They fell for girls and boys. They fell for white, Black and Latino kids alike.
We, the adults, are to blame. An earlier analysis from about 80% of the nation’s public schools found that, in districts that went remote almost all of the 2020-21 school year, the decline in math scores added up to the equivalent of two-thirds of an academic year, almost twice the decline registered in districts that were remote for less than 10% of the year.
Because of the nature of this particular exam, we don’t know whether New York State and City students did better, worse or the same as their peers elsewhere. But just about every indicator we’ve gotten thus far suggests kids in the five boroughs are reflective of the nation.
Students who’ve been set back need more intensive and effective and focused instruction until they get back up to grade level. And the nation, which in the thick of a scary pandemic was doing its best to save lives, must learn from hard-won experience: Schools should only ever be shuttered as a last resort. The price we pay is simply too high.
