American students are still struggling to recover from pandemic learning loss – and reading scores tell a particularly alarming story.
In a classroom at Tussahaw Elementary School in McDonough, Georgia, a student raises their hand during a lesson in 2021. The scene, captured in a photo by Brynn Anderson of the Associated Press, feels emblematic of a wider crisis: Years later, the educational setbacks caused by COVID-19 disruptions persist, especially in reading comprehension.
New assessment data from NWEA, a leading K-12 research and testing organization, reveals that third- through eighth-graders nationwide remain caught in a post-pandemic academic slump. Their Spring 2025 MAP Growth assessment results – drawn from millions of students across thousands of U.S. schools – show minimal progress in math, while reading scores have flatlined entirely.
But here’s where it gets controversial: Some educators argue this stagnation reflects deeper systemic failures in literacy instruction, not just temporary pandemic disruptions. Could outdated teaching methods be compounding the problem?
Reading Scores: No Signs of Recovery
The 2025 reading results are especially concerning. Modest gains seen in 2022 have vanished, with students across all grades now performing at or below the lowest pandemic-era levels. In blunt terms, today’s third- through eighth-graders read worse than their pre-2019 peers – a trend cutting across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines.
"Math is inching forward, however slightly. Reading isn’t moving at all," says Karyn Lewis, NWEA’s VP of Research. "We can’t just close this chapter because we’re tired of it. Ignoring the data won’t fix the problem; it means resigning ourselves to permanent setbacks. That’s unacceptable."
A Glimmer of Hope in Math
Math scores offer cautious optimism. Several grades showed slight improvements compared to 2024, continuing a slow upward trend since 2021. Importantly, these gains occurred across diverse student demographics. And this is the part most people miss: Equity gaps haven’t widened further – progress, however incremental, is being shared.
Yet no grade has returned to pre-pandemic math proficiency. This mirrors troubling patterns in the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP), the federal government’s benchmark assessment (source: NPR, Jan 2025).
A New Tool for Tracking Progress
NWEA is launching a public performance dashboard, allowing schools and policymakers to compare their students’ achievement against a national sample. Updated three times yearly – far more frequently than NAEP’s biennial reports – it aims to provide real-time insights for targeted interventions.
Tom Kane of Harvard’s Education Policy Center compares these assessments to medical check-ups: "After a major injury like the pandemic, waiting two years between ‘doctor visits’ is too long." The dashboard, he argues, fills critical gaps in tracking recovery.
Megan Kuhfeld, NWEA’s Director of Growth Modeling, emphasizes localized disparities: "Recovery is uneven, even within schools. National data is just the starting point – communities need to ask hard questions about resource allocation."
Controversial Context: This push for data-driven decisions comes as the Trump administration slashes funding for the Institute of Education Sciences (source: NPR, Feb 2025), the primary federal agency for educational research. Some argue these cuts undermine recovery efforts. Others counter that local control, not federal oversight, is the solution.
Now we turn to you: Do schools need more standardized testing to diagnose problems, or is the focus on assessments part of the problem? Should pandemic recovery funds prioritize reading interventions over other subjects? Share your perspective below.
