New test scores from the 2023 school year show a near-catastrophic fall in U.S. school test scores compared to the 2019 pre-pandemic scores.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) standardized math test shows the average mathematics score for fourth graders has dropped by 18 points while scores for eighth graders declined by 27 points.
The low scores are not found only in the U.S. Most industrialized nations are seeing a fall in test scores since the pandemic, although the drop is not as precipitous as in the United States.
“Globally, we are seeing declines in achievement, even in traditionally high-performing systems,” NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said in a statement.
The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, show long-term damage done to children who were kept home by ill-considered school closures.
Not surprisingly, poorer kids without access to computers ended up even further behind.
Of the 70 percent of 9-year-olds who learned remotely during the 2020–21 school year, higher performers (those at or above the 75th percentile) had greater access to a desktop computer, laptop, or tablet all the time; a quiet place to work available some of the time; and a teacher available to help them with mathematics or reading schoolwork every day or almost every day compared to lower performers (those below the 25th percentile).
The fall of U.S. educational progress puts us behind many countries we used to leave in the dust.
American students still score above the international average on TIMSS, but they rank below children in the highest-performing nations, including Japan, Singapore, and Korea.
Now, other countries that previously lagged behind the United States—such as Poland, Sweden, and Australia—have leapfrogged the country in some subjects and grade levels.
"The results are sobering," NCES Commissioner Carr told ABC News. "We started this assessment in 1995, so we have, essentially … erased the gains that we were seeing for decades."
It's not just the pandemic. Carr points out that scores have been falling since 2015.
"This decline that we're seeing was there in 2015, so all of this cannot be blamed on COVID," Carr said. "We have been struggling with declining scores, particularly in math, for a while."
The gap between students who are doing well and students who are struggling is growing. There is a direct correlation between wealth and educational performance.
"We need to focus on the students that have been struggling for a while now, and that is where I want to leave it for us as a country to sort of ponder," Carr added.
Part of the problem is that middle school teachers, in particular, do not have a deep understanding of math concepts.
Steffen Lempp, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says over the last decade, the School of Education has changed how prospective K-8 teachers are taught math content to fully prepare them to teach children in the subject.
The UW-Madison math department used to teach these math content courses. Those courses are now taught by the School of Education, in classes that blend content and pedagogy in one. Lempp feels that short-changes the math content preparation, especially for those teaching math in upper elementary and middle school grades.
Lempp says, “To me, it seemed the middle school teachers are not necessarily really qualified to teach math, because they don’t know the underlying math concepts well enough."
This isn't a "tragedy." It's criminal negligence or deliberate malfeasance. The teachers, the school boards, and public education "experts" were all warned about the effects of closing the schools during the pandemic. Since U.S. schools were closed far longer than other countries' schools, the American educational establishment has no excuse for the catastrophic effect their actions have had and will continue to have on this generation of children.
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