The pandemic pushed kids out of the classroom and test scores lower.
Math and reading test scores took a dramatic tumble here and across the nation last year, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress test results released Monday — raising yet another alarm for educators and officials about the pandemic’s impact.
Though the composite score average in Massachusetts continues to be the highest in the country — combining 4th and 8th-grade math and reading scores — scores still dropped, hitting the lowest levels since 2003 or before.
“While students continue to perform well compared to other states, we know that the impacts of the pandemic continue to present challenges,” said Gov. Charlie Baker, noting the “strength” of the state’s education system. “Our Administration has made significant investments to help bridge learning gaps from the pandemic, and we remain committed to making sure every student can succeed.”
The NAEP program has been administered typically every two years for decades, measuring 4th and 8th-grade students’ knowledge of core subjects using representative samples in all 50 states and D.C. The 2022 test, the first since 2019, is widely seen as the first true national study of the pandemic’s impact on learning.
As a whole, U.S. students aren’t doing well.
National math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores hit the lowest since 1992. And not a single state saw significant improvement.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told reporters Monday the results are “appalling and unacceptable,” pushing for the use of billions of dollars of federal pandemic-era education relief.
Scores in Massachusetts have been declining since 2017, but the drop significantly accelerated following the pandemic.
The state, which previously led the country in all four tests, dropped into second place for 4th-grade math and 8th-grade reading.
The state’s 8th-grade math scores saw the steepest and most unprecedented decline, plummeting from 294 in 2019 to 284 in 2022. Researchers typically regard a 10-point gain or drop as roughly equivalent to a year of learning.
Nationally, eighth graders dropped 8 points in math, also regarded as a historic fall.
Scores among Black and Latino, low-income and English-language learner students saw the biggest drops, pushing typically vulnerable students further behind and exacerbating achievement gaps.
Education leaders across the nation and within Massachusetts echoed the phrase “redouble our efforts” Monday.
“Similar to the 2022 MCAS results, the NAEP results indicate the need for additional student supports so students can make up lost ground,” said Education Secretary James Peyser, who will present on the results as well as the MCAS scores released last month at Tuesday’s state education board meeting.
Peyser and others pointed to the need for funding “intensive acceleration programs” and both academic and emotional support resources. These supports have taken forms like additional literacy programs and added counselor or social worker positions in schools.
In Boston, though math scores followed state and national trends and dropped significantly from 2019 results, reading scores in the district remained steady.
In a release, BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper emphasized the need to address the widening achievement gap effecting Black and Brown students in the district demonstrated in the NAEP results.
Now, Skipper said, there is a “deep sense of urgency” around these efforts.
“We have to get this right and address these gaps,” Skipper said.
