Performance Declines in Basic Mathematics and Reading Skills Since the COVID-19 Pandemic Are Evident Across Many Racial/Ethnic Groups

One of the strengths of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the wealth of disaggregated data the program collects to provide insight into achievement across various student groups.

A key takeaway from the latest results is that behind the overall declines in reading and mathematics scores, you see nearly all student groups are facing academic setbacks when compared with results shortly before the pandemic.

The latest data from the NAEP long-term trend (LTT) assessments are sobering. These assessments date back to the 1970s and measure students’ basic math skills—such as simple computations and geometric formulas—and basic reading skills like locating specific information in a short passage.

Here are topline findings from the most recent LTT assessments when compared with results from 2020, some of which are unprecedented.

• Nine-year-olds showed the first-ever significant score drop in math.
• Nine-year-olds had the largest score decline in reading since 1990.
• Thirteen-year-olds posted the largest decline ever in math. The downward trend began in 2012.
• The average reading score for 13-year-olds was significantly lower in 2023 than in 2020, continuing a decline that began in 2012.

Keep in mind the timing of the most recent long-term trend assessments: For 13-year-olds, the testing window was October-December of 2022, compared with January-March of 2022 for 9-year-olds.

You may wonder if the score declines were concentrated to a particular racial/ethnic group or if they were experienced across several groups. The NAEP long-term trend data show that the score declines for 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds were demonstrable for the country’s largest racial/ethnic groups: White students, who made up around 46% of the student body; Hispanic students, comprising around 29%; and Black students, who accounted for about 14%.

Table 1 shows changes in average scores over the last two administrations of NAEP long-term trend assessments for six racial/ethnic categories. On average, scores for Black and White students declined on all four assessments. Hispanic students had score decreases on all but one assessment: age 13 reading. Students of two or more races/ethnicities had score decreases in age 13 math and reading but did not have statistically significant score changes at age 9. American Indian/Alaska Native students had a statistically significant score decline in age 13 math. There were no significant score changes for Asian students. Note that while average scores for some student groups appeared to be numerically lower in 2022/23 than in 2020, they were not marked as a significant change because they did not meet NCES’s standard of statistical significance. Visit the NAEP long-term trend Data Explorer to see more details about student group score changes and statistical significance test results.

It is important to remember that national averages do not tell the whole story. There are nuances beneath that data. The next table shows how scores for lower- and higher-performing students within selected racial/ethnic groups changed during the pandemic.

Focusing on the three largest racial/ethnic groups, higher-performing Black, Hispanic, and White students (those scoring at the 75th-percentile) showed no significant changes in reading scores at ages 9 and 13. On the other hand, lower-performing Black, Hispanic, and White students (those scoring at the 25th-percentile) declined in age 9 reading. In age 13 reading, scores for lower-performing Black students declined while there were no significant score changes observed for Hispanic and White students. In summary, scores in basic reading skills dropped for lower-performing students in several cases but did not change significantly for higher-performing Black, Hispanic, and White students.

By contrast, in math, not only did Black, Hispanic, and White students show score losses among students with low and high performance, but they also presented relatively even score declines across the performance levels. While the numeric changes for lower-performing students appear larger than higher-performers across the selected racial/ethnic groups, the differences were not statistically significant. These results illustrate that the declines in students’ basic math skills were widespread: both lower- and higher-performers—regardless of race/ethnicity—displayed significant losses in math achievement.

The NAEP long-term trend assessments revealed declining student performance in basic reading skills, particularly for lower-performers across racial/ethnic groups at age 9, and more widespread loss in basic mathematical knowledge among our lower- and higher-performing Black, Hispanic, and White students.

These data help make clear how widespread the challenge ahead for the nation is to help all students recover lost ground.