U.S. students face reading recession

Sean Reardon and other researchers at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth said on May 13 that U.S. schools are in a longer-running “learning recession,” with reading declines that began years before the coronavirus pandemic. Their new report argues that the pandemic accelerated an existing slide rather than creating it from scratch. (ed.stanford.edu) National reading results released through the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, have reinforced that picture, especially for older students. Some districts and states have posted gains, but the recovery remains uneven and gaps by income remain wide. ### How far back does the slide go? (educationrecoveryscorecard.org) The May 13 report said math and reading achievement had been declining steadily since 2013, ending roughly two decades of improvement in U.S. elementary and middle schools. Reardon, a Stanford professor of poverty and inequality, said the country had shown earlier that it could raise achievement and narrow opportunity gaps, but “we haven’t been doing much of that for the last decade.” Tom Kane of Harvard, another lead author, said the pandemic was “the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement.” The report frames the last several years as an acceleration of a preexisting trend rather than a one-time pandemic shock. (ed.stanford.edu) ### Why is reading getting so much attention? NAEP’s 2024 reading results showed eighth-grade performance at its lowest point since 1990. The same federal data said 33% of eighth graders scored below the NAEP Basic level in 2024, a larger share than in both 2022 and 1992. (ed.stanford.edu) The Stanford summary said reading losses in the years just before the pandemic were about as large, on average, as the losses during it. That finding is one reason researchers and reporters have described the problem as a “reading recession” rather than a temporary post-pandemic dip. (ed.stanford.edu) ### What does the district-level data show now? The Education Recovery Scorecard’s 2025 release, based on roughly 35 million students in grades 3 through 8 between 2019 and 2024, found the average U.S. student remained nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic achievement in math and reading. It also said students were further behind in reading in spring 2024 than they had been in 2022. (ed.stanford.edu) Only 11% of students were in districts that had recovered in reading by spring 2024, according to the scorecard, while 6% were in districts that had recovered in both math and reading. The same analysis said the highest-income districts were nearly four times as likely as the lowest-income districts to recover in both subjects. (ed.stanford.edu) ### Which places are posting stronger reading results? Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Maryland were among the states cited in recent reporting as improving reading scores while using phonics-based instruction, often described as the “science of reading.” Separate Louisiana education department data said K-3 reading proficiency rose by 2.3 percentage points in 2023-24, and State Superintendent Cade Brumley attributed that to “basic fundamentals like phonics.” (educationrecoveryscorecard.org) Mississippi has also drawn attention for gains in early reading. Mississippi’s education department said its 2024 NAEP results showed fourth-grade reading proficiency above the national average and described the state as one of the few with improved scores since 2013. (educationrecoveryscorecard.org) ### Is this only about classroom instruction? The Stanford-led report pointed to more than one factor. The researchers said the decline overlapped with the rollback of test-based accountability systems from the No Child Left Behind era and with the rise of social media use among young people. They also said chronic absenteeism remains a major obstacle. (edsource.org) The 2024-25 school year still had 23% of students chronically absent, according to the Stanford summary, down from pandemic peaks but well above the pre-pandemic rate of 15%. The Education Recovery Scorecard’s earlier release also said absenteeism played a significant role in slowing recovery and widening gaps between high- and low-poverty districts. (mdek12.org) ### What should readers watch next? The Education Recovery Scorecard collaboration said updated district-by-district data are available through its public site, which tracks recovery across thousands of school systems. The Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth researchers are using those local comparisons to highlight districts that outperformed similar systems in their states. (ed.stanford.edu) NAEP remains the main national benchmark to watch for broad reading trends, while state literacy screeners and district test results are likely to show whether recent gains in places such as Louisiana and Mississippi hold through the 2025-26 school year. (nces.ed.gov) (educationrecoveryscorecard.org) (ed.stanford.edu)