Why U.S. Test Scores Are in a ‘Generation-Long Decline’. The drops go beyond the pandemic and cut across income, geographic and racial divides, new data shows.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/upshot/test-scores-school-districts-us.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Posted by coolbern
8 Comments
https://archive.fo/w8Xir
>Students’ test scores had been increasing since 1990 — then abruptly stopped in the mid-2010s. That coincided with two events: an easing of federal school accountability under No Child Left Behind, which was replaced in 2015, and the rise of smartphones, social media and personalized school laptops.
>The pandemic then accelerated learning declines, especially for the poorest students. Some pandemic effects have lingered. Student absenteeism, for example, remains higher than prepandemic.
>…Test scores in low-income districts fell furthest, but affluent districts — the types of places families move to for the schools — also lost ground.
>…The districts with the least improvement since the pandemic, however, were middle-income districts, according to the analysis.
>…Few rigorous studies have teased out the role of devices in academic outcomes. Yet educators say there’s no question that swiping has decreased students’ focus and persistence, and time on devices has displaced time spent reading or studying. Far more teenagers — nearly one in three — now say they “never or hardly ever” read for fun.
>In turn, schools expect less from students, assigning fewer whole books and simplifying the curriculum
>…It’s harder to keep students’ attention, even after the district banned personal phones and smartwatches during the school day, said Sharon Schaefer, assistant to the superintendent: “We know screens are so stimulating to our students.”
This is all evidence of a social disorder in which attention and purpose are casualties. The result is a growing incapacity to engage productively. Even as we get poorer, we suffer from the degenerate diseases of the rich and useless, who need to buy what they need, but cannot produce it for themselves.
Well I’m sure that the president, who’s very public agenda is to ruin education so that people keep voting against their best interests, will do something about this.
Nepotism has ruined the potential of reward for education.
Most of your wildly increasing property taxes go toward poor public education. More than half the country is illiterate. Do you wonder why people are sick and tired of property taxes?
All good info in this article. One thing I would add, the decline in trust in higher education. There are too many horror stories of people owing student loans they can never fully repay.
Perhaps because when you lower the passable standard you lower the result? The premise all students should pass or get good grades despite it not being earned is ridiculous and only serves to further create a brain drain.
Merit doesn’t matter much in academia anymore
There’s not really an incentive to be a high achiever
It’s all politics and nepotism now
Americans are right to no longer respect the institution