US students' math scores plummet to lowest level in decades: report

Officials with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported that the average math and reading test scores for 13-year-olds in the US have hit the lowest levels in decades.

According to a recent national long-term trend assessment released on Wednesday, the declining education levels began at least a decade before government officials and school districts closed schools in response to the COVID pandemic.



Since the 1970s, NAEP has been monitoring students’ performance in the subjects and administering the federal standardized basic skills tests.

In the 2022‒23 school year, test results from the fall showed an average of 256 out of 500 in reading scores and 271 out of 500 in math scores.

Only three years ago, reading levels were at 260, while mathematics scores averaged approximately 280.

The National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy G. Carr said in a press release, “The ‘green shoots’ of academic recovery that we had hoped to see have not materialized, as we continue to see worrisome signs about student achievement and well-being more than two years after most students returned for in-person learning. There are signs of risk for a generation of learners in the data we are releasing today and have released over the past year.”

Carr also noted declines in achievement, reading habits, and increases in mental health challenges. “The mathematics decline for 13-year-olds was the single largest decline we have observed in the past half a century. The mathematics score for the lowest-performing students has returned to levels last seen in the 1970s, and the reading score for our lowest-performing students was actually lower than it was the very first year these data were collected, in 1971.”

Since 2012, fewer students participate in “reading for fun” and decline to take algebra classes, especially in the Western part of the country, according to the center.

Carr added, “Aside from its academic effects, reading opens the mind and the heart to new ways of seeing and thinking about the world. Many of our young people will never discover latent passions or areas of interest without reading broadly on their own time.”

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona commented on the assessment, stating, “The latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress is further evidence of what the Biden-Harris administration recognized from Day One: that the pandemic would have a devastating impact on students’ learning across the country and that it would take years of effort and investment to reverse the damage as well as address the 11-year decline that preceded it.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), said in a press release, “Students are entering high school who cannot read. This is intolerable. Parents should have the power to place their child in a school which is most likely to address the child’s educational needs. These scores make the case for school choice better than any other argument.”