Washington (AP)-America’s children have continued to lose reading skills after the Covid 19 pandemic and have hardly improved according to the recent results of an examination that is known as a nation report card.
The results are another setback for US schools and reflect the countless challenges that take advantage of education in pandemic training up to the youthful crisis for mental health and high rates in chronic absenteeism. The national examination results also show a growing inequality: While the students have started to regain the lost soil with the highest performance, lower students fall further.
In view of a sample of America’s children, the national assessment of educational progress is considered one of the best measuring devices of academic progress in the US school system. The most recent exam was carried out in early 2024 in each state and tested fourth and eighth grade students in mathematics and reading.
“The news is not good,” said Peggy Carr, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, who monitors the evaluation. “We don’t see the progress we need to regain the ground that our students have lost during the pandemic.”
One of the few glowing spots was an improvement in fourth grade mathematics, in which the average scale of 2 points on a scale of 500 achieved in Washington, DC, where the average score rose by 10 points.
For the most part, however, American schools have not yet started to make progress.
The average mathematics point for eighth grade students remained unchanged compared to 2022, while the reader results on both grades decreased by 2 points. A third of the eighth grade students achieved “Basic” in reading, more than ever in the history of the evaluation.
The students are considered fundamental below if they are missing basic skills. For example, pupils of the eighth grade who scored a goal below in reading could usually not be able to close the motivation of a character after reading a miniature story, and some could not identify that the word “hardworking” “hard” Working “means” working difficult “.
The gap between higher and lower pupils was particularly alarming for civil servants, which has grown wider than ever. Students with the highest scores exceeded their colleagues two years ago and were somewhat lost during pandemic. But the lowest performers achieve even lower and fall further behind.
It was most pronounced in mathematics in the eighth grade: While the top 10% of the students rose by 3 points, the lowest 10% took back by 6 points.
“We are deeply concerned about our low -performance students,” said Lesley Muldoon, managing director of the National Assessment Governing Board, who defines guidelines for the exam. “These students have been in decline for a decade. You need our urgent attention and our best effort. “
The latest setbacks follow a historical relapse in 2022. In this year’s exam, the services of the students fell from both subjects and in the class levels, in some cases at unprecedented levels.
In this test round, students whose life was disrupted by pandemic were also shown. When Covid met in 2020, the fourth graders were in kindergarten and the eighth graders in fourth grade.
But Carr said that bad results can no longer be held responsible for pandemic because the nation’s education system is with “complex challenges”.
A survey carried out in addition to the exam in 2022 showed that fewer juvenile students read for pleasure, which is associated with lower reading values. And modern survey results showed that pupils who are often absent in nationwide lessons – a persistent problem the most.
“The data is clear,” said Carr. “Students who do not come to school do not improve.”
The results offer fresh fuel for a national debate on the effects of closing the pandemies schools, although they probably do not form clarity. Some studies have shown that longer closures led to larger academic setbacks. Those who were reopened more slowly were often in urban and democratic areas, while more rural and republican areas were faster.
The modern results do not show a “direct link” on this topic, said Carr, although she said that the students clearly do it better when they are at school.
Among the states in which the Reading scores fell in 2024, Florida and Arizona are among the first to return to the classroom during the pandemic. In the meantime, some vast school systems that had longer closures made in fourth grade mathematics, including Los Angeles and New York City.
The success of the vast urban districts, 14 of which recorded a remarkable improvement in the fourth grade mathematics when the nation, as a whole, made only minor profits, was attributed to the academic recovery efforts financed by the pandemic recovery of the federal government, said Ray Hart, Managing Director The Executive Director of the Council of Great City Schools. Investments in efforts such as intensive tutoring programs and curriculum activity are “really a difference,” he said.
The Republicans in the Congress quickly blamed Democrats and the government of former President Joe Biden.
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., Chairman of the Committee for Education and the workforce, said that the decline was “clearly a reflection of educational bureaucracy that continues to concentrate on Woke guidelines instead of helping, learning and growing the students .. “
“I am grateful that we have an administration that wants to reverse the course,” he said in relation to President Donald Trump.
Compared to the results of 2019, the eighth grade readers have now dropped by 8 points. The reading values have dropped by 5 points in both classes. And in fourth grade mathematics, the results have dropped by 3 points.
However, civil servants say that there is reason to be confident. Carr emphasized the improvement in Louisiana, where the fourth grade reading is now above the pre-Pandemic level and in Alabama, which achieved this achievement in fourth grade mathematics.
Carr was particularly praised by Louisiana, where a campaign to improve reading skills led to the fact that both students of the higher and lower services exceeded the results of 2019.
“I would not say that hope was lost and I would not say that we couldn’t turn it around,” said Carr. “It was shown that we can.”
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Annie Ma contributed the reporting from Washington and Sharon Lurye from New Orleans.
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