U.S. Student Test Scores Have Been Falling for Over a Decade — And Nobody in Charge Has a Real Answer

The Numbers Are Bad. Really Bad.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 9-year-olds in 2022 dropped 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020. The math drop was the first ever recorded decline in that age group. The reading drop was the largest since 1990.

For 13-year-olds, it's worse over the longer arc. According to the NAEP Long-Term Trend data published at nationsreportcard.gov, scores for that age group fell 4 points in reading and 9 points in math compared to 2020. Zoom out a decade and it's 7 points down in reading and 14 points down in math.

Chalkbeat reported this plainly in January 2026: in 2013, 74% of eighth graders scored at or above the basic level in math — the highest since the test began in 1990. By the most recent results, that number had cratered to 61%, a level last seen in 1996. Thirty years of math gains, gone.

COVID Is the Alibi. It's Not the Cause.

Mainstream coverage typically leads with pandemic learning loss as if that explains everything. But test scores started declining around 2013, a full seven years before COVID. The pandemic accelerated a crash that was already in progress. Schools that stayed open longer during COVID still saw significant learning loss. The virus was gasoline on a fire that was already burning.

University of Virginia researcher James Wyckoff told Chalkbeat: "We should resist the notion of trying to put our finger on the one thing we can change that will solve this problem. I think it really results from many things in and out of school."

Translated plainly: nobody has identified a clear culprit.

Who Gets Hurt the Most

The NCES data is clear on this: lower-performing students took harder hits than higher-performing students at every level.

Among 9-year-olds who learned remotely during 2020-21, higher-performing kids had better access to computers, quieter study spaces, and more teacher contact. Lower-performing kids had less of all of it. The gap didn't just hold — it widened.

According to nationsreportcard.gov, the reading score declines for lower-performing 13-year-olds ranged from 6 to 7 points, compared to 3 to 4 points for middle and higher performers.

The students least equipped to absorb a disruption got the biggest disruption. The pandemic exposed and accelerated a systemic weakness.

What Mainstream Media Is Getting Wrong

The New York Times framed this as a "generation-long decline" — which is accurate but incomplete. Their coverage acknowledges the problem crosses income and racial lines, but stops short of asking why American schools changed around 2013.

NPR noted in May 2026 that a new Education Scorecard shows some improvement in math. That's real, but it's a small uptick against a decade-long collapse. A patient losing 14 points over ten years and gaining back 2 is not a recovery story.

Neither outlet has examined potential explanations seriously. The Common Core State Standards rollout began in 2010-2012. Smartphone adoption among children surged around the same period. Neither gets serious investigation.

The "We Don't Know" Problem Is a Policy Failure

Chalkbeat noted honestly that "confident claims about what's going on here are unwarranted" — but also correctly pointed out that policymakers can't wait for perfect evidence.

Consider the basics: the United States spends more per pupil than almost any nation on Earth, has a massive federal Department of Education with a multibillion-dollar budget, and after a decade of decline, nobody running the system can tell you definitively why it's happening.

If a private company's core product declined in quality for ten straight years and management said "we're not sure why, it's complicated," the board would clean house. In American public education, those same managers get budget increases and their unions negotiate raises.

What This Means for Families

If you have a child in an American public school right now, they are likely receiving a measurably worse education than a child the same age got in 2013. Not because of bad teachers necessarily — but because the system around them has been failing and no one with actual power has been held accountable.

The kids falling furthest behind are the ones who can least afford to. Families with money and options are already pulling their kids out — private schools, charter schools, homeschooling. That choice exists for some. It doesn't exist for everyone.

A nation that can't educate its children is a nation borrowing against its own future. The bill is already coming due.