Putting Pandemic Learning Loss in Perspective

Pandemic's Shadow: National Scores Reveal Deeper Educational Crisis Pre-dating COVID

The latest national assessment data, released with a mix of cautious optimism and stark reality, paints a complex picture of student achievement. While a slight uptick in scores for 9-year-olds in reading and math offers a fleeting glimpse of recovery, a deeper dive reveals a troubling trend of declining performance that began years before the pandemic's disruption.

A Double-Edged Sword: The Latest NAEP Results

New findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Long-Term Trend assessment for 2025 have provided a snapshot of 9-year-old students' academic progress. Scores in both reading and math have shown an increase compared to 2022, with reading scores notably returning to pre-pandemic levels observed in 2020. This suggests some resilience and potential for recovery in the youngest learners.

However, this positive news is tempered by the performance of 13-year-olds. Their scores, also assessed in 2025, remained flat compared to 2023 and continue to lag significantly behind pre-pandemic benchmarks. This divergence between age groups highlights the uneven impact of recent educational challenges and the persistent struggles faced by older students.

Beyond the Pandemic: A Decade of Decline

Crucially, the narrative of learning loss cannot be solely attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data indicates that a steady decline in student achievement began as early as 2013, well before school closures and remote learning became a reality. This long-term trend complicates efforts to isolate the pandemic's precise impact and suggests that systemic issues were already at play.

For decades, average student performance has stagnated, and significant socioeconomic disparities have persisted despite substantial increases in educational resources and numerous reform efforts. This historical context is essential for understanding the current educational landscape and for developing effective, long-term solutions.

The Stakes of Student Achievement

The skills and knowledge acquired through education are foundational to a thriving democracy, individual economic prosperity, and national standing. Standardized test scores, such as those from NAEP, serve as critical indicators of future workforce capabilities and potential societal inequalities.

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly delivered a significant shock to the education system, prompting widespread efforts to mitigate learning loss. However, a comprehensive assessment of these interventions requires placing them within the broader context of pre-existing achievement trends.

National Performance Trends: A Closer Look

The main NAEP assessments, which regularly evaluate 4th and 8th graders in reading and math across all states, provide a vital lens for examining performance over time. Between 2019 and 2022, national average scores for 8th graders experienced notable drops, declining by 0.21 standard deviations in math and 0.07 standard deviations in reading. These figures represent nearly a full year of learning in math and less than half a year in reading.

Yet, these three-year changes may not fully capture the pandemic's impact. The downward trajectory in both subjects had already begun in 2013, with reading scores showing the steepest decline. This suggests that some of the observed drops during the pandemic might have occurred regardless of the disruption.

The Post-Pandemic Plateau

The period following the pandemic, from 2022 to 2024, has not shown the anticipated recovery. Despite substantial federal investment in K-12 education, 8th-grade scores continued to decline, particularly in reading. The data reveals that a significant portion of the overall decline in 8th-grade math performance since 2013 occurred during the pandemic years (2019-2022).

However, for reading, the losses during the pandemic period represent a smaller fraction of the total decline since 2013. The post-pandemic reading decline has been nearly as substantial as the falloff during the pandemic itself, underscoring the persistent challenges.

The pattern for 4th graders mirrors that of 8th graders. Scores peaked around 2013, declined significantly before 2019, and continued to fall through both the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. While the relative drop during the pandemic was larger in math, pre- and post-pandemic losses account for a greater share of the overall decline in reading.

Widening Gaps: The Falling Bottom

Concurrent with the decline in average achievement after 2013, the gap between high-achieving and low-achieving students has widened. For 8th-grade reading, scores at the 10th percentile—representing students at the lower end of the performance spectrum—have fallen relative to those at the top. This widening gap signals a significant deterioration in the future economic prospects for the most disadvantaged students.

While both high and low achievers experienced losses during the pandemic, the impact was most pronounced for those at the bottom. This trend is evident across all grades and subjects assessed by NAEP, with scores becoming more dispersed in 2024 than in any prior year.

Defining Basic Proficiency

NAEP performance levels—basic, proficient, and advanced—provide benchmarks for student skills. The percentage of 8th-grade students failing to reach the basic level in math and reading saw a sharp increase during the pandemic. However, this deterioration followed a substantial decline that began in 2013 and continued even after 2022.

For 8th-grade reading, the basic level requires literal comprehension and some interpretive ability. In 8th-grade math, it signifies understanding of fundamental concepts and their application in simple scenarios. These minimum skills are essential for full participation in an information-based economy.

Consistent Declines Across Assessments

These long-standing achievement declines are not an anomaly confined to the main NAEP program. They are consistently observed across other assessments that allow for longitudinal comparisons of U.S. student samples.

The Long-Term Trend Perspective

The NAEP Long-Term Trend (LTT) assessment, which has tracked national math and reading scores since the 1970s with a consistent content framework, corroborates these findings. Both 9- and 13-year-olds participating in LTT saw their scores peak in 2012 and then decline through 2022. Only 9-year-olds have shown modest signs of recovery in 2025.

International Comparisons Echo the Trend

U.S. performance on international assessments like the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) also reflects this pattern of decline. TIMSS data for 4th and 8th graders showed significant drops between 2019 and 2024, but these declines also began earlier, with peak scores in math and science occurring in the mid-2010s.

PISA, which assesses 15-year-olds in math, reading, and science, also saw scores fall between 2018 and 2022. While the pandemic-era drop was less pronounced than on NAEP, math scores peaked in 2009, and reading and science scores in 2018, indicating a long-term trend predating the pandemic.

State-by-State Variations in Achievement

While a national pattern of declining achievement is evident, there is significant variation among the states. These differences are influenced by factors such as school quality, demographic shifts, and broader societal influences on student learning.

Peak Performance and Subsequent Declines

By 2011, 23 states had already reached their highest observed level of 8th-grade math achievement, with an additional 16 states achieving this by 2013. Similarly, in 8th-grade reading, 9 states peaked by 2011, and 25 more by 2013. Heading into the pandemic, only four states in math and three in reading were at their peak performance levels.

As of the 2024 NAEP tests, only four states—California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Mississippi—demonstrated 8th-grade math and reading performance higher than at the beginning of the century. The extent of decline from each state's peak also varies considerably.

The Pandemic's Share of the Decline

For math, the median decline across states is over one-third of a standard deviation, ranging from 0.11 in Tennessee to 0.56 in Texas. In reading, the range is from 0 in the District of Columbia (which peaked in 2024) to 0.48 in Vermont. For many states, the declines during the pandemic period accounted for only about half of the total score reduction from their peak performance.

However, some states, like Tennessee and Mississippi, have seen post-pandemic recoveries that offset much of the decline from their peak. This suggests that while the pandemic was a significant factor, its contribution to the overall decline varies greatly by state and is often part of a longer-term trend.

The Economic Ripple Effects of Learning Loss

The sustained decline in learning over the past decade carries substantial economic consequences for individuals, states, and the nation as a whole. Research consistently shows a strong correlation between educational attainment and earning potential.

Students with lower skills entering the workforce can expect reduced lifetime earnings. At a national level, a less skilled workforce can lead to slower economic growth. Projections suggest that recent cohorts of students may experience an average reduction in lifetime earnings of nearly 8 percent, with the pandemic-era declines accounting for only half of this projected loss.

A Staggering Economic Impact

The economic costs of these learning declines are immense. Had student achievement remained at its 2013 peak levels, the U.S. economy could be approximately 6 percent higher annually for the remainder of the century. In present value terms, the lost economic growth is estimated to be three times the current U.S. GDP, far exceeding the combined economic losses from the 2008 Great Recession and the 2020 COVID-induced recession.

Given that skill deficits are unlikely to disappear once students leave K-12, and postsecondary institutions and businesses have limited track records of effective remediation, these projected income losses are likely to be permanent for millions of students. Even returning to pre-pandemic levels would only halve these projected losses, leaving significant economic implications for individual well-being, government fiscal capacity, and the nation's global standing.

Revisiting Educational Reform: Lessons from the Past

Concerns about student performance are not new, but the pandemic has amplified them. The landmark 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk," highlighted a similar sentiment: that America's destiny was no longer assured solely by its resources and enthusiasm.

In the four decades since, a wide array of reforms have been implemented, including expanded graduation requirements, increased teacher pay, reduced class sizes, accountability measures, expanded preschool, new curricula, and increased funding. Despite these efforts, the results have been underwhelming.

The Cycle of Incremental Change

A review of past reforms reveals several key issues. Many were incremental and isolated, failing to consider the broader educational system. Promising approaches were often not implemented broadly and were sidelined by subsequent reforms. Most critically, these reforms have largely failed to yield the desired improvements.

For instance, 13-year-old math scores on LTT NAEP saw a gain between the early 1980s and 2012, but this was largely reversed by subsequent declines. Similarly, reading scores, after an initial increase, fell back to 1975 levels. Despite a more than doubling of inflation-adjusted per-pupil expenditure, the challenges identified in 1983 persist.

Persistent Achievement Gaps

Furthermore, these reform efforts have not succeeded in narrowing the performance gaps between disadvantaged and more affluent students. Since the War on Poverty, which identified education as a long-term solution to socioeconomic disadvantage, these achievement gaps have shown no consistent closing and have widened further since the pandemic.

The current policy response to the education crisis has largely focused on pandemic-related achievement declines, assuming the primary goal is to return to 2019 levels. While interventions like extended school days, tutoring, and technological support have been implemented, their effectiveness has been limited, and performance has continued to decline since 2022.

A Call for Fundamental Rethinking

Instead of making incremental adjustments to the current educational structure, a more profound rethinking of how schools operate is necessary. Past reforms have often involved adding components or imposing regulations without fundamentally altering the system's core design.

The dynamics of education policy development also present challenges. Even successful policies at scale have not always been widely adopted due to institutional inertia and competing priorities. Incentive-based teacher compensation systems, for example, have shown significant positive impacts on student scores in some districts but face considerable resistance to widespread implementation.

The Power of Incentives and Local Control

Efforts to introduce significant teacher and administrator incentives have encountered strong opposition, sometimes being explicitly prohibited by legislation. However, in instances where such systems have been implemented and sustained, like in Washington D.C. and Dallas, Texas, they have led to notable student achievement gains.

These successes suggest that a structure that consistently incentivizes and promotes higher achievement requires a re-evaluation of roles for both state and federal policymakers. A shift towards outcome-based designs, recognizing the variability of local capacity and demands, could foster innovation rather than relying on broad mandates.

The federal role could focus on support, including data collection and research, and providing incentives for improvement, rather than control. States, in turn, could grant operational latitude to high-performing districts while offering stricter guidance to those with lower performance. This approach favors a new, outcome-based design over minor adjustments to a stagnant system.

Looking Ahead: Systemic Change for a Brighter Future

The pandemic has understandably dominated recent policy discussions, drawing attention away from the longer-term, albeit less dramatic, declines in student performance. In 2022, the U.S. ranked 34th among participating nations on the PISA math assessment, falling below the OECD average.

While the U.S. economy has benefited from structural advantages and the attraction of highly educated immigrants, this cannot indefinitely compensate for potential weaknesses in its domestically produced workforce. The quality of the labor force, beginning in public schools, is paramount.

Improving the nation's education system necessitates fundamental changes. Decades of incremental adjustments to a resistant system have proven insufficient. The current decade-long decline, exacerbated by the pandemic but driven by systemic issues, demands a departure from the cycle of failed add-ons. A genuine transformation requires a willingness to move beyond minor tweaks and embrace a new vision for educational success.