According to long-term trend (LTT) assessment results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released today by the National Center for Education Statistics, 9-year-old students’ reading and arithmetic skills decreased between 2020 and 2022. (NCES). Acting NCES Associate Commissioner Daniel McGrath stated, “These are some of the greatest declines we have recorded in a single assessment cycle in 50 years of the NAEP programme.” The performance of students in 2022 is at a level last seen 20 years ago.
The new findings are the first study to compare student achievement before and after the epidemic using a nationally representative sample of kids. Early in 2022, the NCES carried out an unique data collection of the long-term trend assessments to track changes in the academic performance of 9-year-olds throughout the first two years of the interruptions to learning brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior LTT reading and math tests were given in 2020, just before COVID-19 was deemed a global epidemic by the World Health Organization. Only a few months after the data collection was completed, NCES is providing these data on an accelerated timeline.
Since 2020, the average math score has dropped seven points overall. Lower-performing 9-year-old pupils (those in the 10th and 25th percentiles) saw their math scores drop by 12 points and 11 points, respectively, during that time. Students at the 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles all saw a reduction in their math scores (each by eight points, five points, and three points, respectively). Between 2020 and 2022, the average reading score for 9-year-olds fell five points. Lower-performing 9-year-old pupils (those in the 10th and 25th percentiles) saw their reading scores drop by 10 points and 8 points, respectively, during that time. Students at the 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles had a decrease in their reading scores of four points, three points, and two points, respectively.
According to NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr, “during the epidemic, NCES continued and strengthened additional data collections on education issues, and they depict a gloomy picture.” “Violence in schools, disturbances in the classroom, teacher and staff turnover, absenteeism, cyberbullying, and the usage of mental health services by students are all on the rise. These details offer some crucial background for the outcomes of the long-term trend evaluation that we are currently experiencing.”