K-12 Education still Struggling Five Years After the Pandemic
Disruption in K-12 Education During the Pandemic Continues After Five Years
Spring has sprung, marking five long years since the COVID-19 pandemic sent public schools into a tailspin. Closed doors and remote learning led to a truckload of unsavory consequences for K-12 education. From grumbles of dissatisfaction amongst the masses, Gallup's annual satisfaction survey shows a substantial increase in frustrations with public education, jumping from 62% in 2019 to 73% in 2025 - the lowest level since 2001.
This discontent isn't the only grabber. The pandemic-induced learning loss spelled tragedy for youngsters, particularly the most vulnerable ones. While some turmoil can be traced back to school closures, other issues originated well before the pandemic, getting a wicked boost from it.
Recent test scores present a clear and somber reminder of the learning loss calamity suffered by K-12 students. And guess what? These scores also provide some insight into what schools need to do to undo the pandemic catastrophe.
What's the Story?
In its January 2024 report on student abilities, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation's Report Card, paints a bleak picture. Reading scores have dipped nationwide for grades 4 and 8 with no state registering gains in either grade compared to 2022. One-third of grade 8 students can't even read at the NAEP's Basic Level, a higher percentage than ever before. In other words, these youngsters struggle with identifying crucial text elements like the sequence of events, character attributes, and main ideas.
On the bright side, grade 4 math scores nudged upward nationally by 2 points. But here's the creepy part: it's mainly the higher-performing students zooming ahead. Scores for lower-performing students remained unchanged. For grade 8 math, scores are flat across the board, and this is questionable because it conceals the progress of higher-performing students and the slide of lower-performing students.
Overall, scores lag behind pre-pandemic 2019 levels in every tested grade and subject. Higher-performing students have contributed a significant chunk of the progress, and the gap between high- and low-performing students is growing at an alarming rate – a trend that's reared its ugly head for over a decade. Finally, on a 500-point scale, the bottom-performers typically score a whopping 100 points less than the top-performers. "The damage is horrifying. Academic performance is tumbling," Robin Lake and Paul Hill from the Center for Reinventing Public Education conclude in The 74.
The Urban Institute's analysis of NAEP data provides a modicum of silver lining. This analysis employs statistical controls to account for differences in student populations between states, unlike NAEP, which uses raw, un-weighted scores. When you consider that child poverty rates are higher below the Mason-Dixon line, states like Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas rise to the top of the NAEP rankings. Kevin Mahnken in The 74 exclaims, "The South is rocketing academically."
The Education Recovery Scorecard, a collaborative project between Harvard University's Center for Education Policy Research and Stanford University's Educational Opportunity Project offers a view of academic recovery in 8,719 school districts, with math or reading achievement data from 43 states, tracking district-level changes from 2019 to 2024.
It found that the average U.S. student in grades 3-8 remains just under half a grade level behind pre-pandemic achievement in math and reading, with students furthest behind in reading. Some school districts have made improvements. But guess who recovers the most? High-income districts are a staggering four times more likely to have recuperated in both math and reading, although there are exceptions of high-poverty districts making gains in math and reading.
Socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic disparities in math achievement have expanded since the pandemic within and across districts. The gap in math scores between students in affluent and low-income districts increased by 11% since the onset of the pandemic, while the gap between students in predominantly non-minority and predominantly minority districts climbed by 15%.
Lastly, student absenteeism, which is slowing recovery, especially in low-income districts, is a significant concern. Federal pandemic aid prevented even more substantial losses in the poorest districts, reducing the loss by 10% of a grade equivalent in math and reading. But it mattered how the aid was spent – districts that devoted more resources to academic interventions, like tutoring or summer school, saw stronger student achievement.
Though there are glimmers of hope, the reality is that the nation's youngsters have yet to recover from the devastating impact the pandemic had on K-12 education. As Mark Schneider, former head of the U.S. Institute for Education Sciences and current nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, puts it, "The 2024 NAEP progress results signal a five-alarm fire."
What's Next?
"The rescue phase is over. It's high time we focused on long-term challenges like reducing absenteeism and mitigating the slide in literacy," says Harvard economist Thomas Kane, one of the Education Recovery Scorecard's authors.
There's no magic bullet for overcoming learning loss, but two tactics are proving exceptionally effective. The first is high-dosage tutoring. Regardless of the specifics, its key elements include four or fewer students under the tutelage of a trained tutor for no less than 30 minutes, at least three days a week, for several months.
This approach delivers remarkable academic results, according to researchers at the National Student Support Accelerator. Elementary students gain more than four months' worth of reading instruction, while high school students gain more than 10 months' worth of mathematics instruction, the equivalent of an additional school year. This high-impact method also works for kindergarten students and in online learning environments. Besides, it aids in combating chronic absenteeism by re-engaging students.
The other potent solution for overcoming learning loss lies in using top-notch classroom educational materials and teacher professional development. For instance, multiple state-level initiatives are underway to improve literacy based on educational research. Between 2019 and 2022, 223 laws based on educational research were enacted in 45 states and the District of Columbia, according to a report from the American Federation of Teachers. They call these laws "an ambitious, bipartisan, state-driven effort to improve U.S. reading outcomes through multilayered investments in teachers and students."
"Whether it's early literacy, improving instructional materials, strengthening accountability, or high school redesign, states are where education reform is happening now," Harvard's Thomas Kane comments. His organization is launching a new initiative, States Leading States, to identify and spread effective, evidence-based state and local education policies nationwide. It'll start releasing an annual report on promising state and local policies that are improving student outcomes in spring 2026.
The K-12 pandemic learning loss crisis is moving from the recovery phase to the long-term challenges of its aftermath. The stakes are sky-high. Stanford economist Eric Hanushek estimates that the learning loss evident in the 2022 NAEP test scores will reduce U.S. students' lifetime earnings by about 6%.
Resolving learning loss calls for a new level of political will from policymakers and advocates, guided by the best evidence available on what works to overcome pandemic learning loss and ensure that the nation's youngsters can reach their potential.
- The pandemic anniversary serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing K-12 education crisis, particularly the high learning loss already affecting students in K-12 schools.
- Despite some silver linings, such as the Urban Institute's analysis that accounts for differences in student populations between states, the Education Recovery Scorecard indicates that average U.S. students still lag significantly behind pre-pandemic levels, with a growing gap between high- and low-performing students.
- To address the learning loss and undo the pandemic catastrophe, experts suggest focusing on long-term challenges, such as reducing absenteeism and mitigating the slide in literacy. Two effective strategies include high-dosage K-12 high impact tutoring and the use of k-12 high quality instructional material, along with necessary teacher professional development.
