Most US kids aren't gaining fast enough in reading and math. Some schools are different.

Boston Globe

11-02-2025

But a new analysis of state and national test scores shows the average student remains half a grade level behind pre-pandemic achievement in both reading and math. In reading, especially, students are even further behind than they were in 2022, the analysis shows.
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Compton is an outlier, making some of the biggest two-year gains in both subjects among high-poverty districts. And there are other bright spots, along with evidence that interventions like tutoring and summer programs are working.
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The Education Recovery Scorecard analysis by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth allows year-to-year comparisons across states and districts, providing the most comprehensive picture yet of how American students are performing since COVID-19 first disrupted learning.
The most recent data are based on tests taken in spring 2024. By then, the worst of the pandemic was long past, but schools were still dealing with mental health issues and high absenteeism — not to mention students who'd had crucial learning interrupted.
'The losses are not just due to what happened during the 2020 to 2021 school year, but the aftershocks that have hit schools in the years since,' said Tom Kane, a Harvard economist who worked on the scorecard.
In some cases, the analysis shows school districts are struggling, even though their students may have posted decent results on state tests. That's because each state adopts its own assessments, and those aren't comparable to each other. Those differences can make it impossible to tell whether students are performing better because of their progress, or whether those shifts are because the tests themselves are changing, or the state has lowered its standards for proficiency. For example, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Florida seem to have relaxed their proficiency cutoff in math and reading in the last two years, Kane said, citing the analysis.
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The scorecard accounts for differing state tests and provides one national standard.
Higher-income districts have made significantly more progress than lower-income districts, with the top 10 percent of high-income districts four times more likely to have recovered in both math and reading compared with the poorest 10 percent. And recovery within districts remains divided by race and class, especially in math scores. Test score gaps grew by both race and income.
'The pandemic has not only driven test scores down, but that decline masks a pernicious inequality that has grown during the pandemic,' said Sean Reardon, a Stanford sociologist who worked on the scorecard. 'Not only are districts serving more Black and Hispanic students falling further behind, but even within those districts, Black and Hispanic students are falling further behind their white district mates.'
Still, many of the districts that outperformed the country serve predominantly low-income students or students of color, and their interventions offer best practices for other districts.
In Compton, the district responded to the pandemic by hiring over 250 tutors who specialize in math, reading, and English as a second language. Certain classes are staffed with multiple tutors to assist teachers. And schools offer tutoring before, during, and after school, plus Saturday and summer programs for the district's 17,000 students, said Superintendent Darin Brawley.
The district also now conducts dyslexia screenings in all elementary schools.
The low-income school district near downtown Los Angeles, with a student body that is 84 percent Latino and 14 percent Black, now has a graduation rate of 93 percent, compared with 58 percent when Brawley took the job in 2012.
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Harmoni, the sixth grader, said tutoring has helped her grasp concepts and given her more confidence in math. She has 'data chats' with her math specialist that are part performance review, part pep talk.
'Looking at my data, it kind of disappoints me' when the numbers are low, said Harmoni. 'But it makes me realize I can do better in the future, and also now.'
Brawley said he's proud of the district's latest test scores, but not content.
'Truth be told, I wasn't happy,' he said. 'Even though we gained, and we celebrate the gains, at the end of the day we all know that we can do better.'