U.S. students still exhibit poor scores in reading years after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Nation’s Report Card.
“The most notable challenges evident in the 2024 data are in reading comprehension. Reading scores dropped in both fourth and eighth grades since 2022, continuing declines first reported in 2019, before the pandemic,” a press release from the National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], using information from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), said. It added that in 2024, the “percentage of eighth-graders’ reading below NAEP Basic was the largest in the assessment’s history, and the percentage of fourth-graders who scored below NAEP Basic was the largest in 20 years.”
Forty percent of fourth-graders and 33 percent of eighth-graders scored below the “basic” threshold.
NCES Associate Commissioner Daniel McGrath said the organization has “reported declines in reading achievement consistently since 2019, and the continued declines since the pandemic suggest we’re facing complex challenges that cannot be fully explained by the impact of COVID-19.”
Math scores for American students had slight improvements from years past, although the average scores remain lower than pre-COVID. “In mathematics, the average score for fourth-graders has risen about two points since 2022, from 236 to 237,” the release said. “For eighth-graders, there is no significant change in the average score between 2022 and 2024. Average scores at both grades remain lower than in 2019.”
NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr explained, “Overall, student achievement has not returned to pre-pandemic performance. Where there are signs of recovery, they are mostly in math and largely driven by higher-performing students. Lower-performing students are struggling, especially in reading.”
Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) said the poor scores are a “reflection of the education bureaucracy continuing to focus on woke policies rather than helping students learn and grow.”
