Reading And Math See ‘Historic Decline’ Thanks To Terrible Pandemic Responses From Schools

The way schools reacted and amended their policies during the pandemic posed severe consequences on students. Many of which are just becoming known two years later.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), average scores for nine-year-olds saw a historic decline between 2020 and 2022. With a decline of five points in reading and seven points in mathematics compared to right before the pandemic.

As the NCES would highlight, reading scores saw the biggest drop in more than 30 years. While math saw its first ever score drop. 

NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr, PhD. would say in a statement that these historic drops were due to “shuttered schools and interrupted learning.”  

Moreover, she believes many of the policies schools enacted during the pandemic “have exacerbated many of the challenges we were already facing.”

Students were also impacted in other ways, including; exacerbated mental health problems, truancy, school violence, cyberbullying, in addition to staffing shortages.

“These are some of the largest declines we have observed in a single assessment cycle in 50 years of the NAEP program,” said Daniel McGrath, the acting associate commissioner of NCES. 

“Students in 2022 are performing at a level last seen two decades ago,” he added.

Noticeably, many of these drops were a result of the pandemic response, and not because of the virus itself.

Per the Associated Press: “The declines hit all regions of the country and affected students of most races. But students of color saw some of the steepest decreases, widening the racial achievement gap.”

Interestingly, the racial achievement gap has become one of the biggest issues progressive schools have tasked themselves to resolve. But as highlighted in Luke Rosiak’s heavily detailed book, Race to the Bottom, this is one area that especially gets worse under left wing leadership.

This study paired with Rosiak’s findings showcase major problems with how school systems are being run in America. Not to mention they give cadence to the theory that children are not being put first when it comes to school policies and responses to the pandemic.

The teachers union working alongside the CDC continuously urged for the delay of school reopenings. Seemingly putting teacher and staff needs way above the students. 

Per reporting from Timcast:

E-mails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showed that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) lobbied the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and also suggested language for the agency’s school-reopening guidance.

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