ATLANTA -- No one doubts that the COVID-19 pandemic hurt student learning. Now, much-anticipated test scores today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress pinpoint where impacts were greatest.
Given every two years, NAEP tested a representative sample of 446,000 students from 10,800 schools in 2022 to enable an aerial view of the pandemic’s effect on the academic performance of U.S. students. While sweeping, the view isn’t inspiring, especially in math. The national average score declines in mathematics for fourth and eighth graders from 2019 to 2022 were the largest recorded in the subject in three decades.
Georgia fared better than most states, only seeing a plummet in eighth grade math of 8 points. Scores slid in fourth grade math and in reading in both grades, but the drops were deemed negligible.
