Eighth-grade students are averaging their lowest-ever reading scores since the Department of Education began tracking nationwide progress in 1992.
The newly released results for the 2024 National Assessment of Student Progress paint a dim picture of reading skills among students who are on the verge of entering high school, even as the data shows that absenteeism rates have begun to trend down since the last NAEP in 2022.
Reading scores for 8th graders have fallen in eight states and seven of the nation’s 25 largest school districts since 2022. The results are even worse compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic tests—8th-grade reading scores were lower in 28 states and 11 of the 25 largest districts compared to the 2019 NAEP.
“Today’s NAEP results reveal a heartbreaking reality for American students and confirm our worst fears: not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but those students who were the most behind and needed the most support have fallen even further behind,” the Department of Education said in an […]
Why would anyone think it would be different? We have gone down and down for years now and are way down below countries that we actually looked down upon—-but their math and language skills are far better than ours! Our students spend way too much time on cellphones and social media and, of course, so many states are run by Republicans who just hate to spend money on their schools or health care, or anything that actually helps people and not businesses. WE only have ourselves to blame for continuing to keep electing them. Until Americans wake up to this that their lives, health, well-being, etc. are going to be impacted by Republicans lack of interest in their well-being, those scores and young people’s health will continue to decline.
Check out the podcast “Sold A Story” to find out how many of the educators have been fooled into believing that the way they have been teaching reading is not science based and has actually harmed kids reading progress. It’s too much to describe here but basically ever since teachers stopped teaching phonics or learning to sound out words and instead taught a different method based on “guessing” what the word is based on the story being told, reading scores have been greatly effected. It was all done for profit and this method is still being used today.