JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The nation's 12th graders got a report card today, and it is not good again. Since before the pandemic, the scores in reading and math have been declining from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The numbers from the U.S. Department of Education come at a difficult time. The agency has lost nearly half its staff as President Trump continues his efforts to dismantle the department. So to talk about this drop in test scores and what educators say they can do about it, we have NPR education reporter Sequoia Carrillo. Hi there.
SEQUOIA CARRILLO, BYLINE: Hello.
SUMMERS: Sequoia, let's just start by talking about these numbers. How bad is it?
CARRILLO: So some of this was to be anticipated. These are the first scores for 12th graders we've had since the pandemic shut down schools in 2020 and completely upended learning. That being said, 12th grade math dipped to the lowest it's been in 20 years. We also got eighth grade science scores today, and those dropped as well. We saw declines across the board for both high-achieving and low-achieving students. Twelfth grade reading also dipped for most students, but what's interesting there is the average 12th grade reading score is now 10 points lower than the first-ever recorded test more than 30 years ago.
SUMMERS: Interesting. Sequoia, earlier you mentioned the pandemic that shut down schools back in 2020. What role did that play?
CARRILLO: So the pandemic was absolutely a factor, but this year's drop just added to a long and steady trend line that started back in about 2014 well before the pandemic. And now, when you look at the total drop off, it's quite stark. Take 12th grade reading. Again, we're down three points on this test from the last one, but down 10 points overall since 1992. And there were some gains back there in the early aughts, but those are gone now. So the pandemic is a factor, but researchers seem to agree it's also many other things. Some popular theories are that it started as blowback from the Great Recession and lack of economic mobility. Also, the declines sort of parallel the rise of distractions like cellphones and social media.
SUMMERS: So a big question here - how might schools be able to improve this decline?
CARRILLO: It is a big question, and there are lots of different proposed solutions out there. I just reported on how a record number of states are now banning cellphones during the school day. Maybe we'll start to see that show up in these test scores. There's also been a nationwide effort to revamp reading instruction, and that may, at some point, start to make a difference. But we're also likely missing out on a lot of solutions because these test scores that we got today, they're just a snapshot.
I talked to Andrew Ho, a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education this morning after the numbers came out, and he likened the report to a weather forecast for the whole country. It's like, hey, today is 60 and partly cloudy on average for this huge country. He says we're missing out on a lot of sunny days all around, and we're also probably missing some tornadoes. He and many researchers would like to see much more detailed data - state-level data - from the U.S. Education Department. But with the Trump administration's cuts, the staff that manages these tests is now quite small. The layoffs earlier this year and the administration's efforts to dismantle the Education Department will make information like this even more difficult to come by.
SUMMERS: NPR education reporter Sequoia Carrillo, thank you.
CARRILLO: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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