Recent testing data reveals that students from grades three to eight are still grappling with the challenges posed by the pandemic, particularly in reading. Math scores have shown slight improvement, but they have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The findings are based on the Spring 2025 MAP Growth assessment conducted by NWEA, a prominent K-12 testing and research organization. This test was administered to millions of students across numerous U.S. schools.
“Math is crawling back, however modestly, but reading isn’t budging,” stated Karyn Lewis, vice president of research at NWEA. “I know people want this chapter to be over, but these data remind us it isn’t. Looking away won’t make the problem disappear; it means accepting these outcomes are permanent. That is not an option.”
In a bid to assist school leaders and policymakers, NWEA is launching a new publicly available performance dashboard. This tool will enable them to compare their students’ performance with a wide national sample.
Reading Scores: Still Below Par
The reading scores from Spring 2025 show a concerning trend. Any slight improvements observed in 2022 have vanished, with students performing at or below the low levels seen during the pandemic.
Overall, students in the third through eighth grades are underperforming compared to their 2019 counterparts, with no significant differences based on race, ethnicity, or poverty levels, according to NWEA’s press release.
Math Scores: A Gradual Recovery
There is a glimmer of hope in the Spring 2025 math results. Several grades have seen slight improvements compared to 2024, with most grades showing slow and steady progress since 2021.
Encouragingly, these improvements in math are evident across diverse student groups, irrespective of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background. However, none of the grades have yet reached the math performance levels of 2019.
NWEA’s findings align with similar concerns highlighted by federal data released earlier this year, part of the Nation’s Report Card.
Introducing a New Performance Dashboard
NWEA’s new dashboard is designed to help schools and officials understand how local students’ performance compares nationally. This tool will be updated three times annually, providing more frequent insights than the biennial Nation’s Report Card.
Tom Kane from Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research likens these updates to health checks for students. “Two years is too long for American students to go between doctor visits, especially when recovering from a major injury, such as occurred during the pandemic,” Kane commented, emphasizing the importance of the new dashboard as a complement to the Nation’s Report Card for tracking students’ recovery.
Megan Kuhfeld, NWEA’s director of growth modeling and data analytics, noted, “Given the unevenness of recovery, even within schools and classrooms, national trends like these are an important first step to understanding where to dig deeper at the local level and ask critical questions about the necessary support and resources.”
This initiative to supply districts and states with more data coincides with the Trump administration’s decision to cut funding for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the department responsible for handling federal student achievement data.
Copyright 2025 NPR
