Bush Center finds recovery uneven

The George W. Bush Presidential Center said on May 23 that the latest Education Scorecard shows U.S. students are recovering from pandemic-era learning loss at different speeds, with progress varying by subject, grade and district. The scorecard draws on assessment data for roughly 35 million public school students in grades 3 through 8 and tracks results through the 2024-2025 school year. Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research, Stanford University’s Educational Opportunity Project and faculty at Dartmouth College produced the analysis. ### How broad is the dataset behind this finding? The May 13 Education Scorecard press release said the project links state test results for about 35 million grade 3–8 students in 2022–2025 to a common national scale. The researchers use the Stanford Education Data Archive to compare district-level changes in achievement across the country. (educationscorecard.org) The Bush Center’s explainer said the size of the dataset matters because it allows comparisons across communities rather than isolated snapshots. Its article summarized the findings as evidence that recovery is still incomplete for many students in reading and math. ### Where is the recovery strongest, and where is it lagging? (educationscorecard.org) The Education Scorecard said recovery since 2022 has been “U-shaped,” with the largest gains in the highest-income and lowest-income districts. Middle-income districts — defined in the press release as those with 30% to 70% of students receiving federally subsidized lunches — showed the least improvement on average. (educationscorecard.org) Thomas Kane, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, said on the project page that the United States had been in a “learning recession” since 2013, before COVID-19 hit. The scorecard says the pandemic worsened a decline that had already started in national reading and math performance. ### Why does reading still stand out in this report? The May 2026 report said reading remained under heavier pressure than math. (educationscorecard.org) The press release said math began rebounding in 2022, while reading continued to decline, and that 2025 results showed only the first signs of a turnaround in reading. Grade-level evidence in the report underscored that point. (cepr.harvard.edu) The researchers said Grade 8 reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are now at their lowest point since 1990, while Grade 4 reading scores are back to pre-2003 levels. ### What does the Bush Center say elementary schools are still seeing? (educationscorecard.org) The Bush Center article said elementary classrooms are still dealing with unfinished foundational skills, including weak reading stamina and shaky number fluency. Those gaps, the article said, continue to show up in younger cohorts even as some headline indicators improve. (educationscorecard.org) The Bush Center framed those patterns as evidence that many children have not simply grown out of missed instruction time. Its summary said schools still need to address basic literacy and numeracy skills directly rather than assume those gaps have closed on their own. ### What do the researchers say is driving the uneven picture? The May 2026 report said federal pandemic relief funding appears to have played a major role in the gains made by the highest-poverty districts. (bushcenter.org) The press release said that without that aid, the average high-poverty district would have remained at its 2022 achievement level. Chronic absenteeism is still “a headwind,” according to the press release, costing the equivalent of one to two weeks of learning per year. The report also said researchers are examining whether early literacy reforms are beginning to improve reading outcomes in some states. ### What comes next in this work? (educationscorecard.org) The Center for Education Policy Research said the project has now dropped “Recovery” from its name and will continue as the Education Scorecard. The team said its next phase will focus on “districts on the rise” and on factors affecting achievement, including absenteeism, literacy reforms and social media use. (cepr.harvard.edu) (educationscorecard.org)