According to recent figures from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, student test scores nationwide have hit their worst decline in history.
The Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) is a measure of fourth through eighth grade students’ proficiency in reading and math. This year all student levels from the most advanced in the 90th percentile to the lowest in the 10th percentile experienced significant drops in math and reading proficiency.
Despite numerous causes for the decline, distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic remains the primary suspect. First, almost all Catholic schools opened full time by the fall of 2020 and the data demonstrates that they experienced the least amount of learning loss, avoiding declines in fourth grade math and eighth grade reading proficiencies. Second, states that kept the most schools open had smaller declines in proficiency when compared to other states.
Thus, it remains apparent, that the best course of action would have been to open schools as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, such action was not taken due to special interests within states and schools that followed President Joe Biden’s unnecessarily extensive closure policy into the 2021-22 school year.
With numerous studies demonstrating the mass learning loss linked to school closure, it is telling that certain parties placed their special interests and agendas above the needs of schoolchildren.
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