Sickening US Teen Reading & Math Scores

Letter to Ephesians: DOE says latest US high school seniors’ scores in math & reading tests plunged to lowest levels on record and we don’t have the pandemic to blame. The depressing news can’t get much worse. Or, can it?

Twelfth-graders' average math score was the worst since the current DOE testing began in 2005, the WSJ coverage noted, while reading was below any marker beginning in 1992. In fact, reading proficiency now stands at 35% and math proficiency clocks in at 22%. Even the next worst off level of proficiency, “basic level of performance,” dropped. We’re told, “few if any student groups or regions of the country have been entirely spared” the roughly 2% overall decline since the last tests were administered several years ago. Moreover, these latest and worsening US high school scores mirror those showing up on tests of children just entering school as well as on international exams and tests.

The consequences are frightening. Said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the board administering the tests: “Students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago ... AND ... This is happening at a time when rapid advancements in technology and society demand more of future workers and citizens, not less.” Doesn’t this mean the US is not only slowly but surely morphing into two classes of haves and have nots economically, but scholastically as well? Does anyone seem to care? Parents, ready to teach reading & math yourselves?

Davd Soul