Students in U.S. schools are performing worse academically than they were a decade ago, according to a new report.
The findings come from the Education Scorecard, a research project led by Harvard University, Stanford University and Dartmouth College that analyzed reading and math scores for students in grades 3 through 8 across more than 100 school districts between 2009 and 2025.
According to the report, reading scores began declining around 2013, years before pandemic-related school closures and remote learning reshaped education across the country. By the time students entered the pandemic years between 2019 and 2022, reading performance had already dropped significantly.
Researchers also found that reading scores from 2017 through 2019 had already fallen to levels similar to those recorded during the height of the pandemic. Eighth-grade reading scores in 2025 were also at their lowest point since 1990.
“Between 2013 and 2015, the rate of improvement became negative in mathematics and was essentially zero in reading,” the report stated. “Although the pandemic seemed to hasten the decline in math, the annual rate of decline in reading was similar in the period before the pandemic (2017–19), during the pandemic (2019–22), and after the pandemic (2022–24).”
Tom Kane, one of the report’s authors and faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, described the trend as a “learning recession.”
“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 alongside the findings.
Researchers linked the decline to several long-term changes, including the end of the No Child Left Behind Act and the growing role of screens and social media in students’ daily lives.
The report also pointed to chronic absenteeism and stalled literacy reform efforts in some districts as additional factors contributing to weaker student performance.
Elaine Allensworth, executive director of the UChicago Consortium on School Research, said the findings are concerning but should not be viewed as a reason for panic. Allensworth was not involved in the report.
“The decline in scores doesn’t mean that students aren’t ready. It’s not something to panic about. It’s something to be aware of,” she said.
“We need to really start asking questions about what we can do to support students so they feel engaged in school and we’re addressing those factors that are leading students to be less engaged and leading to these smaller learning gains,” she added.
Despite the declines, the report also highlighted some positive results, noting that schools that adopted literacy programs tied to the “science of reading” phonics approach reported stronger reading scores in several districts.
