We need to talk about test scores

The declines go beyond pandemic effects

Amid all of the other news in recent months, one story seemed to get lost: The academic performance of American 4th and 8^th graders is at its lowest level in decades, and students in Europe aren’t doing very well either. When these trends were covered in the press, the focus was almost exclusively on pandemic learning loss. That’s a factor, but it’s far from the whole story.

In the 1990s and 2000s, student academic performance was improving: Standardized test scores were up in subjects such as math, reading, and science. That started to change in the early to mid-2010s. If that time period sounds familiar, it should be: That’s when smartphones became popular, daily social media use moved from optional to nearly mandatory among teens, teen sleep deprivation rose, and teen depression skyrocketed.

The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) project gives standardized tests in math, reading, and science to 16-year-olds around the world. In Western Europe, science scores peaked in 2012. They declined 16 points between 2012 and 2018 and then a further 3 points into 2022. Math scores peaked in 2009; they were about the same in 2012 and declined 5 points between 2012 and 2018, declining 19 points into 2022. Reading scores peaked in 2015. Between 2012 and 2018, they declined 11 points, and declined a further 13 points into 2022 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Standardized test scores of 16-year-olds, Western Europe, 2006-2022. Source: PISA. Note: Scores are weighted by country population.

Clearly there are effects of the COVID-19 pandemic school closures in these trends, as shown by the big declines between 2018 and 2022. But there are noticeable declines before that as well, all starting in the early to mid-2010s. That timing points toward a role for smartphones and social media. That role could be direct – for example, phones distracting from learning during class time (or at school but outside of class time, if phone use during lunch and passing periods causes disruptions). The role of technology could also be mediated through other factors. For example, smartphone and social media use increases sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation compromises learning. Or they cause attention issues or depression, which also negatively impact learning.

In the U.S., the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the most well-respected measure of K-12 academic performance. It’s known as the Nation’s Report Card. Among 8^th graders, math scores peaked in 2013. They then declined 3 points between 2013 and 2019, and declined 8 more points into 2022 and 2024. Reading scores peaked in 2013, declined 5 points between 2013 and 2019, and declined 5 more points from 2019 to 2024.

Again, the declines started before the pandemic, in the early to mid-2010s.

Figure 2: Standardized test scores of U.S. 8^th graders, 1990-2024. Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress.

NAEP also tests 4^th graders. Their math scores peaked in 2013; they declined only one point between 2013 and 2019. They declined 8 points between 2019 and 2022-2024. Reading scores peaked in 2013; they declined 5 points 2013-2019 and 5 points 2019-2024. So the decline in math scores before the pandemic was less for 4^th graders than for 8^th graders, but the decline in reading was similar.

Figure 3: Standardized test scores of U.S. 4^th graders, 1990-2024. Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress.

There’s something else curious here: If the pandemic were the primary cause of lower test scores, they should have noticeably increased between 2022 and 2024. But they didn’t. Between 2022 and 2024, reading scores declined 2 points among both 4^th and 8^th graders; math scores stayed the same among 8^th graders and rose by 1 point among 4^th graders. By 2024, the school closures of 2020 were four years distant, and nearly all students had been physically back at school for two or three years. Between 2022 and 2024, mask mandates disappeared, large gatherings resumed, travel restrictions eased, less invasive COVID treatments such as Paxlovid became more widely available, and COVID cases declined. In other words, things got back to normal — or at least closer to normal. But test scores still got worse. In the AP article on the test score declines, Tom Kane, a Harvard economist, said, “The losses are not just due to what happened during the 2020 to 2021 school year, but the aftershocks that have hit schools in the years since.”

It's not clear, though, what aftershocks he’s referring to. What, exactly, got worse at schools between 2022 and 2024? There’s not an obvious pandemic-related answer to that question. Some other social force seems to be operating here. Maybe it’s the growing ubiquity of social media and smartphones/watches in these age groups (9 to 14); maybe it’s something else. But it’s clear we can’t attribute the whole decline in academic performance to the pandemic.

Where can we go from here? One obvious solution is no phones during the school day, bell to bell. That avoids the patchwork of different rules in different classrooms, with the unhealthy dynamic of the “cool” teacher allowing phones and the “mean” teacher not allowing them. Phones are distraction machines – especially for teens in school, where classwork can’t possibly compete with all of the entertainment and contact with friends the phone brings.

Overall: If the declines in academic performance are not solely due to the COVID pandemic, that means they are not going to go away as the pandemic fades from memory. Given that, we need to think more about other causes and take action accordingly. The growing popularity of phones being away for the day at school gives me hope that in a few years maybe we can turn these trends around.