Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics
by u1hcw9nx on 4/22/2026, 6:57:20 PM
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Comments
by: japhyr
People are talking about Covid, smartphones/screens, social media, and AI. No one has mentioned defunding public education yet.<p>In Alaska, where I lived most of the last 20 years, education has been largely flat funded for about a decade now. Imagine running an organization in 2026 on that organization's 2016 budget. Schools have a bunch of obligations they have to spend on. Every time health care costs for staff go up, and funding is flat, something gets cut. You can't cut education for a decade straight without impacting student learning.<p>I don't think Alaska is that much of an outlier in this regard.
4/22/2026, 8:01:41 PM
by: havaloc
Much ink has been spilled in the comments already, but as a child of the 80s, computers were a class, and not a lifestyle. If I had gone through school with what's available today, I doubt I would have done as well as I did. Most things were handwritten, I learned cursive, and computer class was Oregon Trail and basic programming essentially.<p>Looking back, I don't think Chromebooks, iPads and the like would have been beneficial to my elementary/middle/high school education at all.<p>Our primary instrument of learning was the teacher and really thick textbooks that were passed down student to student, and you could see that journey inside the in front cover where you signed it out for the year.<p>As someone who would protest at learning long division when a calculator was around, in retrospect, the teacher was right.
4/22/2026, 8:32:07 PM
by: datadrivenangel
Just gotta do the Mississippi thing and hold kids back unless they meet standards. Don't leave them behind by pretending to leave no one behind.
4/22/2026, 9:03:49 PM
by: godelski
The peak was in 2012<p><pre><code> 2012 2020 2023 Reading 263 260 256 Math 285 280 271 </code></pre> So people are looking at Covid and that's probably not enough. The scores are closer to those of the 80's than those in the 90's and 00's
4/22/2026, 7:47:41 PM
by: khat
Let's see Common Core was released in 2010 and by 2014-2015 most states had implemented it. Lets do the math, 2026 - 13 = 2013. Hmmm... You can say funding all you want but in the same 13 years of Common Core funding per student has increased by 50%.
4/22/2026, 9:06:23 PM
by: u1hcw9nx
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) administered the NAEP long-term trend (LTT) reading and mathematics assessments to 13-year-old students from October to December of the 2022–23 school year. The average scores for 13-year-olds declined 4 points in reading and 9 points in mathematics compared to the previous assessment administered during the 2019–20 school year. Compared to a decade ago, the average scores declined 7 points in reading and 14 points in mathematics.
4/22/2026, 6:57:20 PM
by: biscuits1
I grepped for "covid" and "COVID-19" on all presented text. 1 result found.<p>". . . did you ever attend school from home or somewhere else outside of school because of the COVID-19 outbreak?"<p>Can someone else confirm?<p>Not enough investigation there. Of course, the trend was already going down, but the new slope is obvious.<p>Prediction in next three years will be same or greater - technology, ai, screentime.
4/22/2026, 7:35:38 PM
by: MrVitaliy
States should pay attention to Missisipi on how they were able to revamp education in under a decade.<p><a href="https://oxfordeagle.com/2025/01/30/mississippi-4th-graders-no-1-in-the-nation-for-naep-gains-over-time/" rel="nofollow">https://oxfordeagle.com/2025/01/30/mississippi-4th-graders-n...</a>
4/22/2026, 8:53:09 PM
by: aggakake
Look at Youtube Shorts in an incognito window to see the mindless crap that's popular among median users.
4/22/2026, 7:59:51 PM
by: dzink
Tiktok was launched by ByteDance in 2018. Reels was unleashed 2020 and YouTube shorts in 2021.
4/22/2026, 8:08:36 PM
by: PaulKeeble
[1] is a summary of the impact on the brain of Covid-19 infections including IQ reduction but many others besides. Its best understood that there is no such thing as a consequence free Covid infection, it always damages something and the early british experiment where they intentionally infected young men resulted in all of them loosing IQ and none of them being aware of the loss. This finding has been built on substantially in the past 6 years and we have a much large list of issues now, none of it treatable.<p>[1] <a href="https://theconversation.com/mounting-research-shows-that-covid-19-leaves-its-mark-on-the-brain-including-significant-drops-in-iq-scores-224216" rel="nofollow">https://theconversation.com/mounting-research-shows-that-cov...</a>
4/22/2026, 8:22:55 PM
by: raincole
I know the knee-jerk reaction is social media, but from the graph in the article, it seems to just get back to the same level as 90s.
4/22/2026, 8:01:53 PM
by: magicalist
(2023)<p>comparing Fall 2019 to Fall 2022
4/22/2026, 7:20:49 PM
by: NickNaraghi
Note that these are 2023 numbers, not 2025.
4/22/2026, 8:05:17 PM
by: tmsh
It looks like it's trending back up post-COVID (this link has California data but not sure how you link to this without selecting a state)? <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/overview/ca?chort=1&sub=MAT&st=MN&year=2024R3&sfj=NP&cti=PgTab_OT&sj=CA" rel="nofollow">https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/over...</a>
4/22/2026, 8:09:18 PM
by: nekusar
I'll throw in my own $1.50 , inflation and all.<p>There's definitely loads of money in "education". But the actual teachers arent seeing it. No, its in "special interest programs", state/federal compliance, loads of tests, and ordained material from "preferred creators" (cough, pearson etm.)<p>We can pay teachers better, sure. But there's lots of areas to "pay better". Small classes. 12-17 students. Budget for class resources. No, teachers should NOT be responsible for work materials. Larger classes get aides as well.<p>Ive also seen what modern teaching is about. The teachers are handed absolutely shit material and required to teach that, with low/no deviation. Like, "New Math" <a href="https://www.understood.org/en/articles/9-new-math-problems-and-methods" rel="nofollow">https://www.understood.org/en/articles/9-new-math-problems-a...</a> . None of these methods show WHY, only a rote procedure.<p>I thought about becoming a teacher. I already teach people (wide array of adults and under 18) in extracurricular groups. Ive seen what works well, and what doesnt. I can tell the 'energy' of a group, especially if theyre confused and angry about something, and how to solve it. But the pay is definitely laughable compared to IT, and the administration demands exacting rubrics put forth by companies who kicked back the state educators.<p>The responsibility is not worth their salaries or the anti-benefits and other costs.
4/22/2026, 9:15:04 PM
by: randomNumber7
Children spend an insane amount of time in school yet it has little results.<p>One overlooked problem is imo that you can't just waste their time with nonsense and get good results.<p>A lot of people in the education system are so full of shit that they believe it's good for children to sit there the whole day.<p>Improving exercises and lectures should be a priority.
4/22/2026, 8:41:20 PM
by: bijowo1676
screen time and social media
4/22/2026, 7:35:45 PM
by: darkteflon
… in mice.<p>Sorry - that was reflexive: “… in the US”.<p>I don’t think there’s any great mystery here. Every few years, you guys elect a bunch of people for whom active sabotage of public education is a sine qua non to political gerrymandering strategies driven by the self-preservation instincts of lobbyists.
4/22/2026, 8:13:14 PM
by: insane_dreamer
As a parent of 2 older kids (post college) and 2 young ones (primary/middle) I think one big problem is the academic expectations for the kids have dropped, and unless they are highly motivated they won’t rise above classroom expectations (even if the parents are pushing them at home). The second problem is what happens outside school: non-stop distractions: phones, iPads, social media, it’s always there. Yes we try to restrict it but it’s like forcing your kids to use a horse and buggy while all their friends are driving cars ; maybe we need to convert to Amish. It’s maddening, really.
4/22/2026, 8:49:00 PM
by: nonameiguess
Everyone is going to name their pet bugaboo, but if you look at the full charts, the scores were pretty stable in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and are regressing back down to what they were historically. The real question is why they went up temporarily until 2012.
4/22/2026, 8:12:21 PM
by: swingboy
The right wingers are going to have a heyday with this one just like they’ve been doing with the “Swedes are getting dumber and nobody knows why” articles.
4/22/2026, 7:57:44 PM
by: cynicalsecurity
Youth today are ungrateful; they contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers.
4/22/2026, 8:42:16 PM
by: tdb7893
I cannot wait for one of my uncles to post this about how kids these days can't do anything so I can point out that the scores were even lower in his age bracket.
4/22/2026, 7:48:13 PM
by: ekjhgkejhgk
Does anybody else find it super suspicious that all the percentiles declined by similar amounts?
4/22/2026, 8:14:17 PM
by: semiinfinitely
where are the measurements between 2012 and 2020
4/22/2026, 8:38:51 PM
by: booleandilemma
We might be entering an era when literacy and math are no longer required by most of the populace. Have you seen these kids do google searches? They just use the voice recognition feature on their phone (yes, they have phones at twelve years old, for some reason) and ask google for what they want. Handwriting is already out the window, what if reading and writing are next? If they can have AIs explain everything to them verbally what do they need to read for?<p>I don't want to envision a future where most people besides a few elite have stopped reading and writing but maybe I'm just an old millennial and behind the times.
4/22/2026, 8:44:55 PM
by: crabbone
Being a parent, I ask myself this question: is it worth it to struggle to get my child to try for better grades? And I don't have a definitive answer.<p>The reasons to doubt are perfectly known: meritocracy is on a decline in the Western world, there's an ever improving safety net for losers, there's a price to pay for forcing my child to study vs the child spending time with their friends who were left to roam free as their social life will suffer.<p>I probably met more people whose degrees played little to no role in their professional career than the other way around. I've met lots of people who could never realize their degree because of the hollowed down European industry. Engineers seem to suffer the most. It seems like the few ways where a degree can open the door to a better life must be in a field that provides very localized services s.a. medicine. All else is outsourced. Trades do better in this respect as a lot of them need to be local, but they too are being populated by foreign workers and competition is fierce.<p>I don't think that COVID or any other "force of nature" is to blame for the outcomes. When there's will, there's a way. It's just that fewer parents see academic achievements as worth pursuing for their children.
4/22/2026, 8:07:18 PM
by: teacher987
[dead]
4/22/2026, 8:46:23 PM
by: anonreeeeplor
Without documenting the Change in demographics it’s meaningless. If there are more dumber people from populations with lower Iq - then this is inevitable. It’s an IQ test not a test of teaching skill.
4/22/2026, 8:17:08 PM