A new national analysis shows the reading gap between current student performance and pre-pandemic levels amounts to close to half a grade level, with meaningful progress confined to just five states and Washington, D.C., the Associated Press reported.
The findings come from an Education Scorecard assembled by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth, who compiled and compared test data covering
The five states that posted reading gains — Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana — shared a defining policy feature: each had directed its schools to embrace phonics-based reading instruction, commonly called the "science of reading," the AP reported. In reading, Louisiana stood alone in eclipsing its 2019 benchmark statewide; 87% of students enrolled in traditional public schools were in districts whose scores topped pre-pandemic figures. Nationally, only Louisiana and Alabama managed to push their 2025 math scores above what students were achieving before the pandemic.
Adopting the science of reading was no guarantee of results, the Los Angeles Times noted. Florida, Arizona, and Nebraska all revised elements of their reading curricula, yet each saw test scores continue to decline.
Among the theories researchers have put forward to explain the persistent slump: smartphone-driven social media use has crowded out the time children once spent reading for pleasure. At the same time, according to the AP, states have gradually eased the penalties imposed on schools that fail to move the needle on standardized test results.
Across more than 400 districts nationwide — among them Modesto, California, and Detroit — students recorded reading or math gains that exceeded those of comparable districts elsewhere in their states. Detroit's turnaround was fueled in part by a settlement exceeding $94 million that resolved a 2016 case in which students contended the city had deprived them of a basic ability to read, paired with a sustained push to get more students into classrooms regularly, according to the AP.
Stanford professor Sean Reardon pointed to the nation's longer arc of educational achievement as grounds for confidence. Beginning in the 1990s, test scores climbed and graduation rates rose for decades, he noted, a track record he told CNN should inspire belief in what is still possible: "We made enormous progress as a country in terms of educational success from over a 30-year period. Test scores went up dramatically. And so I think that says, as a country, we can improve education and educational opportunity."
