A new national report found student achievement declines began years before COVID-19, with many districts still struggling to recover.
WASHINGTON — American students were already struggling academically years before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted classrooms, and many middle-income school districts are still lagging behind in recovery, according to a new national report from researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University and Dartmouth College.
The 2025 Education Scorecard found the nation entered a “learning recession” around 2013, when gains in math and reading stalled and student achievement began declining.
Researchers say reading scores had already been falling before the pandemic, with losses between 2017 and 2019 matching the pace of declines seen during the pandemic years. Eighth-grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are now at their lowest levels since 1990, the report said. Meanwhile, fourth grade reading scores have fallen to pre-2003 levels.
The report analyzed test scores from roughly 35 million students in grades 3 through 8 between 2022 and 2025.
“The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement,” Tom Kane, faculty director of Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research said. “The ‘learning recession’ started a decade ago, after policymakers switched off the early warning system of test-based accountability and social media took over children’s lives.”
Researchers found the post-pandemic recovery has been “U-shaped,” with the largest academic improvements occurring in the wealthiest and poorest districts. Middle-income districts, where 30% to 70% of students receive federally subsidized lunches saw the least improvement on average.
The report said federal pandemic relief funding likely helped drive recovery in the highest-poverty districts. Without that aid, researchers said, many low-income districts likely would have remained at 2022 achievement levels.
Math scores rebounded more quickly after the pandemic, returning to pre-2013 improvement rates between 2022 and 2024. Reading scores, however, continued to decline sthrough 2024 before showing early signs of improvement in 2025.
Researchers linked many of the reading gains to “science of reading” reforms, which focus on evidence-based reading instruction. States including Maryland, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky showed reading improvements while implementing comprehensive literacy reforms, according to the report.
The report also identified chronic absenteeism as an ongoing barrier to academic recovery. About 23% of students were chronically absent during the 2024-25 school year, down from pandemic highs but still above pre-pandemic levels of 15%.
Researchers also highlighted 108 “Districts on the Rise” that showed large improvement in both math and reading, despite facing similar demographic and economic challenges as neighboring districts.