by Selena Hill
May 20, 2026
A new report reveals U.S. students are struggling in reading and math at levels not seen in decades
A new report is sounding the alarm on the state of education in America, revealing that students are performing worse academically than a decade ago, and that declines in reading and math scores began years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the newly released Education Scorecard, a joint initiative from researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University, and Dartmouth College, academic performance among students in grades 3 through 8 has steadily declined since 2013. The report analyzed reading and math scores from more than 100 school districts nationwide between 2009 and 2025, reports ABC News.
Researchers found that reading scores had already begun slipping before the pandemic, with student performance from 2017 to 2019 nearly as poor as scores recorded at the height of COVID-era school disruptions. Meanwhile, eighth-grade reading scores in 2025 reportedly fell to their lowest levels since 1990.
Tom Kane, a faculty director at Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research and one of the report’s authors, described the decline as a “learning recession.” He pointed to the rise of social media and changes in federal education policy as possible contributors to the academic downturn.
“The ‘learning recession’ started a decade ago, after policymakers switched off the early warning system of test-based accountability and social media took over children’s lives,” Kane said in a statement released with the report, according to ABC News.
The report also highlighted the end of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2015 as a potential turning point. The law, which required schools to track and report student progress, was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act. Researchers suggested that reduced academic accountability, combined with growing screen time and social media use among students, may have hurt students’ ability to learn. Additional factors linked to declining student performance include chronic absenteeism, classroom disengagement, and insufficient literacy reforms.
Still, some education experts say the data should serve as a call to action. Elaine Allensworth, who serves as the executive director of the UChicago Consortium on School Research, told ABC News that the findings underscore the need for schools to better support student engagement and address the root causes behind reduced academic growth.
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