American students are in trouble. About a third of students in the youngest grades are behind on reading. Only 36% of fourth graders are proficient at grade-level math. The newest National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP)–the nation's report card–shows eighth-graders' history scores are the lowest on record since the assessment began in 1994. And what's more, every single state experienced teacher shortages in at least one subject in 2022.
While many of these problems began before COVID-19, there's no denying that the pandemic paused or reversed academic progress for kids across the country. The NAEP showed that for both fourth and eighth-grade students, reading scores declined in at least 30 states and jurisdictions, and math scores declined nearly everywhere from 2019 to 2022.
