“This situation seems pretty bleak to me,” writes journalist Matthew Yglesias in an article published in The 74 entitled “American Students Are Getting Dumber.” He was reacting to the latest student achievement results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often called the Nation’s Report Card. He goes on to lament how “we’re suffering mostly from a big national failure to take the educational goals of the school system seriously.” He makes no grand proposal for a way out of this misery. But he implies that the time has come for a renewed educational excellence compact with K-12 public school families.
The NAEP results he laments tell us that the high school class of 2024 posted the lowest 12th-grade reading scores on record and the weakest math performance since 2005. Compared with 2019, 12th-grade scores fell three points in both reading and math, with the largest decline among the lowest-performing students.
Reading scores are lower than any prior senior assessment. Roughly one-third scored below NAEP’s Basic Level in reading, indicating limited comprehension of grade-level prose, not simply texting fluency.
