New data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – also known as “The Nation’s Report Card” – has further confirmed that American students are falling woefully behind. The data also provides more vindication for President Donald Trump’s stance that the Department of Education is failing at its job, and that more control over education should be returned to parents, states, and individual school districts.
As AMAC Newsline reported earlier this year, the 2024 NAEP for fourth and eighth graders found that an astonishing 69 percent of fourth-graders and 70 percent of eighth-graders scored at or below “basic” in reading — totaling the largest percentage of struggling students in the study’s history. Fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores dropped two points from 2022 and five points from 2019.
Meanwhile, in math, the 2024 test found that nearly 25 percent of students “do not reach the NAEP basic level, meaning they likely cannot identify odd numbers or solve a problem using unit conversions.”
New NAEP scores out this month for eighth grade science and 12th grade reading and math are similarly dismal. According to the test results, nearly 80 percent of high school seniors are not proficient in math, and nearly two-thirds are not proficient in reading.
Overall, just 35 percent of test-takers were rated “proficient” in reading, and the average score was the lowest in history. For 12th grade math, only 22 percent of students scored in the “proficient” range, and the average score was the lowest since 2005.
Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon explained that these results are yet more evidence that her department has failed at its job, and that drastic changes are needed to reverse the alarming decline in student performance – namely, empowering parents and local officials to take charge of education rather than being burdened by edicts from Washington. As McMahon noted, despite spending more than $3 trillion since its creation in 1979, the Department of Education has overseen a steady decline in performance.
“Despite spending billions annually on numerous K-12 programs, the achievement gap is widening, and more high school seniors are performing below the basic benchmark in math and reading than ever before,” McMahon said. “The lesson is clear. Success isn’t about how much money we spend, but who controls the money and where that money is invested. That’s why President Trump and I are committed to returning control of education to the states so they can innovate and meet each school and students’ unique needs.”
In 12th grade reading, scores have dropped from an average of 292 points in 1992 to 283 points in 2024. The average score for 12th grade mathematics has decreased from 150 points in 2005 to 147 points last year. The average science score for eighth-grade students reached 154 points in 2019 but dropped to 150 points in 2024.
Sarah Parshall Perry, who serves as vice president of the parental rights organization Defending Education, explained that students are still suffering from schools forcing them to learn remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic – as well as from schools pushing identity politics into classrooms in recent years.
“For every parent that begged schools to reopen during the COVID pandemic, this news confirms what they already knew: kids would suffer, & irreparably so,” she said in a post on X. “As a new school year begins, a pall hangs over American education: it is failing our kids & robbing them of their futures. And no matter how much money we throw at the problem, the scores continue to bottom out. The social experimentation, lack of rigor, & identity politicking must end. If for no other reason than that we can no longer afford them.”
The average scores in all three categories tested by NAEP notably dropped after COVID. From 2019 to 2024, eighth-grade science scores dropped by four points, 12th grade reading scores dropped by two points, and 12th grade mathematics dropped by three points.
But the 2024 results show that, even as schools reopened and the pandemic lockdowns subsided, scores have not rebounded. From a broader historical perspective, the pandemic dip seems to have only accelerated a pre-existing trend.
All of that means that the Trump administration now has more evidence to support its position that the current education system is failing students – and the bureaucrats in D.C. who created the crisis will not be the ones to solve it.
Alan Jamison is the pen name of a political writer with extensive experience writing for several notable politicians and news outlets.
The only way the educational system will be repaired is if choice is allowed. The leftist teachers’ unions have a stranglehold on education, and until parents are allowed to choose where their children will go to be educated, things will not change.
Perhaps if we hired teachers who were interested in teaching math, reading, and science instead of using class time to indoctrinate kids into left wing socialistic ideals that don’t work, scores would improve. School choice would provide a way for parents to move students to schools that hire the right teachers and force the other schools to close.
Trash the whole Public Ed system ALL nationwide
While Democrats bemoan downsizing the Department of Education, they focus on how that department works to provide equality of outcomes for all. If by equality they mean that students’ ability to read or do math has been trending to a level of general incompetence, then the DOE has been wildly successful. I have been astounded to learn that some schools in my state have stopped naming valedictorians and no longer rank their students’ academic standing. They claim that focusing on academic achievement somehow puts too much stress on the tender emotions of their students. This is no way to excel as a nation. The purpose of educating students is to prepare them for success in life. Who goes through life without stress?
Like ALL bureaucracies, you pour money into the DOE and it goes mainly to paper-pushing bureaucrats rather then the intended recipients! Remember, DOE was a direct quid pro quo from Jimmah Carter to the NEA and AFT! Scores have dropped greatly since the “gubmint” got involved! Can the NEA and AFT be decertified? They are the main “criminals” in this scenario.
My late husband was employed to teach basic math and English to students entering his engineering program at our local community college. He died 5 years ago. He didn’t like needing to do this nor being asked to pass students who failed to master electrical engineering in order to receive government grants.
That failure needs to be placed appropriately in the lap of the unions and the Democrat party. They do not care at all about education all they care about is indoctrination. That’s why they are against charter schools and they don’t think parents should have any voice in the education of their children.
I wonder how much the rise in family disfunction tracks with the decline in educational performance. My parents and especially my great aunt got me to love reading at an early age, and my dad was technically inclined and he instilled in me a love of math. I think I would have been fine no matter how bad the school system was. But the educational bureaucracy made sure that when I tried teaching for a year, I got out of there as fast as I could. God help those poor kids in the LA Unified School District!
It amazes me that the liberal left failed at everything they did. I now believe their failures in education and all the other areas of our society were by intention. What a shame. The recovery will take many years and a great deal of money because many of the perpetrators are still in the system promoting their liberal left agendas.
Democrats need to concern themselves with teaching children what a pronoun is. Then maybe they’ll actually know if anyone is misusing one.
I taught high school students for 25 years and saw MANY problems causing the steady decline in overall academic success of students, at which the speed of this decline has rapidly increased over the last fifteen+ years. Sadly, vocational and technical schools have also be sucked into this downward spiral. Some of these major problems are:
1. The complete national takeover of the K-12 public schools by leftist ideologies, agendas, Marxist, and curriculums at the federal level and in ALL ‘blue’ States and ‘blue’ cities.
2. Powerful teacher’s unions (and other related unions) that are run by leftists and that support these FAILED leftist progressive ideologies. They pride themselves in protecting incompetent teachers, child molesters, and even school district adminstrators.
3. Far leftist school board and city council members that insist ALL K-12 public schools add the LGBTQ+, DEI, BLM, Marxism, and other sick and perverted subject matter to the curriculums. ALL students will be ‘introduced’ (forced on) to students (REFUSING TO GIVE PARENTS THE OPTION TO ‘OPT’ OUT THEIR CHILD) while at the same time, other, actually IMPORTANT subject matter (math, science, music, various shop classes, etc.) have been removed from the curriculums. Further, concerned parents are condemed, not allowed to speak at, and even arrested at school board meetings.
4. Left-wing enabling parents begin the brainwashing of their children in the home and fully support and defend the continued brainwashing curriculum being forced on ALL children.
Should one of the few NON-LEFTIST teachers in education attempt to fail a student who has completely, knowingly and willingly failed to turn in homework, had excessive unexcused absences, failed every test given, and has reached the ‘bottom’ and is now digging, his/her parents will threaten a law suit.
And guess what? The administration supports the parents and writes up the teacher, and or places them on unpaid administrative leave or terminates them.
5. Politicians and the courts also support ALL of these INSANE leftist ideologies, perversions, unions, and curriculums.
Returning public education back to the States will only win half the battle. Students living in Red States and Red cities will academically and within the trade schools be successful and remain far above their Blue State counterparts.
But as long as Blue States and blue cities remain committed to their decades of FAILED perverted ideologies, agendas, curriculums nd literally INSANE, NO COMMON SENSE IDEAS, there is NO CHANCE OF LARGE SCALE STIDENT SUCCRSS. (Unless of course the ones responsible for this nationwide failure simply make their Blue State’s Standards an ALL PASS REGARDLESS and a NO FAIL REGARDLESS system.
AMAC, I know that you are doing your best to get rid these sites that are out to deceive the public out of hard-earned money, but I notice that you cleared some this morning that 2 minutes later new ones came up again. Any way to block this site?
There are a few red states that have managed to turn their scores around..find out what THEY are doing and roll it out nationally, or no federal money to your state. This is a disgrace. The left and their teachers unions would rather educate illegals than American children whose parents are paying to educate THEM, not people who shouldn’t even be here. Disgraceful. I don’t blame the good teachers for quitting!
Many pertinent and good suggestions given in the comments; I would emphasize school choice…let the money follow the child. We want an educated populace, but we are not getting it today. I retired from elementary education and saw the following in the last 20 years:
Please come to WA…its horrible here with all the trans and gays running the DOE here. Refuses to follow the laws…please hurry
Schools have been failing students for a long time; not just during or after COVID. Plus add the ridiculous changes made during the failed Obama and Biden administrations; and the control of UNIONS to add up to the mess they are dealing with today. Taking GOD out of everything they can, Democrats have totally obstructed education in this country all the way to universities. It’s a shame and a sham!!!! Parents who are home schooling are they only ones sending off students to universities with healthy educational backgrounds with many of their students going on scholarship. Sex education and identity crisis counseling for students in grade school is uncalled for. That is the parents job and they need to work harder at their jobs when their children are so confused about “who they really are!”. Colloquial saying was once “give a man enough rope and he will hang himself.” This has happened with education. They were given so much rope (power in this case); that they hung themselves. The proof is in the national average scores of American schools!
This really doesn’t surprise me, but at the same time it does. This is nuthin new. I remember hearing stuff like this back in the 80s, knowing of students in this same position, but it wasn’t really the teachers, it was more the student(they jus didn’t want to put the effort in or there was a real reason for it). But I guess the basics were still being met back then. Seeing these numbers today was an eye opener. Those points didn’t seem like a big drop, but in reality, they’re astounding. I mean, today kids don’t even know how to write or read cursive writing. Reading, writing, arithmetic, maybe we should bring back that slogan. If ‘the children are our future’, then we really need to start working on it. This is truly sad
It’s time to stop blaming covid for low reading, math and science scores.
The gradual deterioration of the K through 12 education system in the U. S has continually occurred year by year since the early 1970s. The establishment of the Department of Education was specifically assigned the task to reverse the deterioration. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act was specifically designed to improve K through 12 education in specific areas by setting annual improvement standards set by the states, but monitored by the U S Department of Education to ensure enforcement of achievement in meeting gradually improved standards with the Federal Government through the Department of Education allocating increased Federal Funds to those states with schools who showed improvement against the standards in specific education topics. This concept has failed (miserably) to provide the desired results over the last 20 plus years. The Department of Education funding and, thus its mission became more and more focused on college loans than the original design of the Education Department on improving K through 12 education. For reasons I cannot personally understand, both the Federal Department of Education and the state education departments have failed miserably over the last 50 plus years to improve K through 12 education achievement in the U. S. I understand why the Republicans want to completely eliminate the U. S. Department of Education, but I believe that it should be downsized and refocused on only the fast and significant improvement of K through 12 Education standards. By the way, I also believe that the specific emphasis of education in civics and personal financial management courses in all high schools in the land (that I believe were directed in the No Child Left Behind Act) should be implemented throughout the U. S. education system requirements for high school graduation.
Bring back the basics in education in grade school. Have teachers teach not baby sit. Get rid of the devices in grade, middle and high schools. Support student discipline in the schools
First problem that needs to be solved, better qualified teachers. We now have a curriculum where politics is taught in school. Next is trans, CRT and DEI with a little racism thrown in. By the time these kids “graduate” they have been radicalized and once the liberal academia at the universities get a hold of them they are soldiers for the left ideology. Watching Charlie Kirk over the years debating these radical students is proof enough. Under Autopen all of a sudden millions of people were trans. Drugs and surgeries were done mutilating these children for life and making teachers, professors, doctors, surgeons and hospitals rich. Johnny couldn’t read 65 years ago we were told. More money was thrown at it. Maybe we should look at it from a different point of view how qualified are the teachers. We found out during the nep pandemic how they felt. No school for the kids, the teachers were sun bathing in the Bahamas. They were being paid and kept screaming they would kill their family if they had to go and teach. And nothing of the sort ever happened. The left saw a chance to brainwash a whole generation coming up and they succeeded. We have radicalized the 18-30 years ago old to the point they are numb. Who are the mass shooters of today. Who are demonstrating against Israel and pro Hamas. The kids that have been radicalized in K-12. Education in this country has to be totally overhauled. And the teachers Union has to be stopped running the education system in this country. The left will never agree to any of that. Schumer just wanted 1 trillion plus dollars for the migrants. Zero for the citizens. Wake up America. Keeping the citizenry uninformed is what we see today. Which has led to hatred so deep that the left kills. We see it every day. And education has a lot to do with it. We need to start at the local level and better qualified teachers might be a good start.
Where is the Money going then, are Teacher’s tested to see if they can Teach, A rotten Potato is evident by it smell, and something does not smell right?
Democrats ruin everything. They took control of the DOE in the 70’s and education has been going downhill ever since. This is utterly disgusting. If you think the Chinese are doing this to their youth, you’d be sorely mistaken. This is how empires fall.
What can you expect when previous Democratic administrations were requiring trans and DEI studies rather than the three “Rs.” If it is with the states, they can make quicker changes. And choice would be a good idea. But maybe the idea was to have a gullible electorate to go along with grateful illegal immigrants.
It has been failing for decades, ever since the scores and standards were lowered to accommodate those who did not belong in the classroom in the first place, teachers loosing authority, trouble makers flourishing while decent students struggled, grading tossed, everyone got a medal for job well done. Only winners in that system, good for the self esteem. Those who came up with it and kept it going should face the firing squad, the damage they’ve cost, for which we payed, which we see daily, Harris, Buttigieg, Cortez and scads of others are product of that system, sick.
Teacher Unions are important for teachers to be treated fairly, however, too many teachers are too concerned with themselves and not concerned enough about giving their students extra help. Many students need extra attention and time to master basic learning concepts, because their home lives are not conducive to academic learning. A good teacher needs to stay after school to help those students who need the extra time and practice. Too many teachers are going home as quickly as possible. I know this because I was a teacher for over 31 years.
We did better before there was a Dept. Of Education, end it and save money!
I retired from public school teaching during the year of the pandemic. I taught in the last few years only advanced level courses, but even there I saw some sagging student attention, especially in the last semester of 2019-20. I am not surprised at all by these stats.
Even the shift to States will not alleviate the problem, government in education. The process is the SAME at State level as at Fed level, politics controlling. School choice where the money is controlled by the PARENTS’ choice of school and thus education w/o politics of the government is the best current solution. We learned from the DOE forced lockdowns that not only was remote education ineffective but we also discovered a covert severe radical Left indoctrination system that has existed for decades. Home schooling has also been a shortfall as the core learning still suffers. With Parental choice the Left will still choose Left, but at least the parents on the Right will have a chance to educate their children outside of Left indoctrination inherent in the DOE either State or Federal.
Just whom to blame? I know that many nine year olds cannot read, some can call words but do not retain what they have read, and any penmanship is really deficient. I have known that cursive is not taught in the public schools, but these youth cannot even print their own name legibly. Surely choice is the only answer, in selecting a school that competes.
As a retired teacher with 35 years in the trenches, I think I can speak to this. Many years ago, I remember faculty meetings where we debated the merits of a rigorous curriculum over the everyone gets a gold star mentality. Unfortunately, the gold star crew won out and now we see the results.
Speaking of math, 3 trillion dollars over 46 years, 1979 to 2025, comes out to around 65 billion dollars a year. A monumental waste of taxpayer money apparently.
No worries. They all have cellphones and can Google stuff. BTW…remember when we put folks on the moon? WITHOUT Google?! (smmfh while rolling eyes)
We need to go back to phonics and the other techniques they used 60 years ago. The old ways weren’t broke and the modern ‘improvements’ don’t work.
It’s time to get back to the basics, reading writing and arithmetic!
the past 100 years (particularly the years 1993-2015 were disastrous) of anti-Christianity, communist indoctrination, infanticide, perversion and anarchy are not what the founders designed.
Well they can always do what they did here in Wisconsin. The WI department of ed, which is totally owned by the teachers union, quietly lowered the standards for the testing and then claimed the kids were doing better when more passed.
I think a HUGE point we are missing here is that once a child has lost the opportunity in the early grades to be properly educated in the basic skills of math, science, grammar, reading, history, and geography it is too late! The time is gone, the window has closed. And all these individuals are turned lose in the world, frustrated, indoctrinated, uneducated and depressed. It is criminal. And speaking as a parent who tried desperately to change the system and was stone-walled at every turn, I despair of the future for bright kids in the public school system.
I’ve always said that leaving the education of your children up to the government was foolhardy. Although our kids went to public school we were very involved in their homework and supplemented from other sources. It really didn’t take that much time or money to give our kids a much better education.
Plus we were very visible to their teachers and kept close tabs on what was being taught so we could ‘correct’ any spurious indoctrination.
Points? By reading this it sounds a lot like they are using the ESG, social credit scores in which every company and every business and then everyone has to adhere to in the near future. We need to abolish all types of scores before the evil infiltrates all of America with it.
Close the Dept of Ed and put it back in the hands of local and state and out of the SWAMP!!!
Pretty sad state of affairs. Good thing Trump wasn’t President before or the blame would partially lay on his shoulders…………oh wait, that’s right he was President before.
Weird huh?