The gold-standard measure of educational trends has the word “progress” in its name. But the National Assessment of Educational Progress unveiled Thursday showed nothing but slippage over the last two years. Students saw the largest average decline in reading since 1990 and the first drop in mathematics ever measured in the half-century-old test.
We don’t speak often of educational emergencies, but America has one now.
A half-true refrain is that the pandemic caused this. While COVID-19 created tremendous challenges for schooling, decisions by adults exacerbated them. It is now incumbent on those same adults to make strategic investments that will enable kids, and especially the low-income kids most harmed over the past two years, to regain their lost foothold.
