American students face never before seen obstacles in their ability to learn and thrive. This shocking statistic is part of the just released Nation’s Report Card from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Department of Education. The report points out alarming trends. It is an indicator that an alarmingly small share of the students in the lowest-achieving quarter of states are getting the education they need and are entitled to.
These results reflect a shocking decrease in scores in every subject. This is the first Nation’s Report Card released since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Among our high school seniors, almost 50 percent are scoring at or below the most basic levels in math and reading. Only 36 percent of seniors read at a proficient level. In math, that figure plummets to a mere 22%.
The 4th report in the series illustrates that 32% of American high school seniors scored below basic in reading. This frightening figure points to a dangerous drop from prior years. In 2019, 37% of high school seniors were reading on grade level. This has only gotten worse since 1992, when 40% of high school seniors were meeting or exceeding this benchmark.
Beyond worsening academic outcomes, attendance has become highly problematic. By 2024, nearly one-third of 12th-grade students said they had missed three or more days of school in the last month. This is up from 26% in 2019. This alarming uptick only deepens worries over how damaging the effects of absenteeism have been on students’ academic success.
Marty West, a noted education leader, lamented that the growing achievement gap “should be the great disappointment of our time.”
“What troubles me most about the patterns that we’re seeing is that the declines are largest for our lowest-performing students — those in the bottom quarter of the distribution. Meanwhile, high-scoring students – those at the 90th percentile are doing just about as well as ever,” – Marty West.
For as scary as things are looking for our lowest-performing students, high-scoring students at the 90th percentile still aren’t losing ground and continue to do well overall. Beyond the policy implications of this discrepancy though, it represents and adds to a widening chasm in educational success.
Linda McMahon, the Trump administration’s education advocate, made clear that we don’t have time to wait to fix these problems.
“Today’s NAEP results confirm a devastating trend: American students are testing at historic lows across all of K-12,” – Linda McMahon.
She reiterated that billions of dollars in federal resources have been poured into K-12 education programs. Yet more high school seniors today are performing below basic cut scores in math and reading than ever before.
“Despite spending billions annually on numerous K-12 programs, the achievement gap is widening, and more high school seniors are performing below the basic benchmark in math and reading than ever before,” – Linda McMahon.
And that’s not enough. Our latest report shows that only 31% of eighth-grade students are proficient or above proficient in science. This finding only adds to the complexity of an already very convoluted landscape when you look at American education.
