Last week, the National Center for Education Statistics released results from the 2025 National Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term Trend Assessments. These widely respected reading and mathematics tests have been administered periodically to representative samples of 9- and 13-year-old students since the 1970s. While some student groups have made promising gains, test results suggest that our public schools continue to fall short for far too many children.
Nine-year-old students appear to be headed in the right direction. Reading and mathematics scores for this group increased from 2022 to 2025, and scores in both subjects remain significantly higher than those recorded in the 1970s. While the results for 9-year-olds were promising, the most recent increase in reading scores merely rebounded to pre-COVID levels, and achievement gaps persist across multiple student demographic groups.
On the other hand, results for 13-year-old students remain appalling.
Student scores for 13-year-olds in reading or mathematics have not changed since 2023. Shockingly, the average reading score was not significantly different from the score recorded in 1971 and remains much lower than results reported in 2012 or 2020. This year’s average math score was slightly better than the 1973 score, but remains 15 points lower than 2012 and ten points lower than 2020.
COVID shutdowns account for part of the reason for stagnation among 13-year-olds. Despite multiple warnings that school shutdowns would create generational academic and economic harms, these students were the victims of pandemic-era governors who surrendered to teacher union demands that schools remain closed for in-person instruction.
The most notorious example is former North Carolina Governor and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper, who consulted openly with North Carolina’s National Education Association (NEA) affiliate to formulate his administration’s school closure policy. As federal COVID relief dollars flowed to states like North Carolina, Cooper and other NEA-aligned governors allowed school districts to squander billions of dollars earmarked for academic remediation and recovery.
Yet, school shutdowns only tell part of the story. Average reading and mathematics scores among 13-year-olds began to drop after reaching a historic high in 2012, long before the pandemic. NAEP scores suggested that the nation’s public schools had made meaningful progress toward finally neutralizing the so-called “middle school slump.” Regrettably, that progress was short lived. Social and emotional learning (SEL), the Common Core State Standards, and other large-scale educational experiments began to spread rapidly during the 2010s and likely railroaded a decade of solid academic progress.
That is why addressing the “middle school slump” requires a comprehensive strategy that refocuses on the fundamentals of education.
First, schools should provide a knowledge-rich curriculum informed by rigorous state standards delivered primarily through direct instruction. Grading must accurately reflect student effort and mastery, and student performance should be assessed regularly using national standardized tests that measure literacy and numeracy skills, content knowledge, and analytical thinking.
Second, schools should offer multiple opportunities for academic acceleration and specialization, as well as dedicated and personalized instruction for special needs children. Students who do not reach grade-level proficiency should have access to high-quality, individualized tutoring. All students, regardless of ability or circumstance, should graduate high school fully prepared to exercise their civic duties in adulthood.
Third, schools should be orderly environments that are free of personal electronic devices and impose meaningful consequences for disruptive behavior. This necessitates knowledgeable and unbiased personnel that maintain high academic and behavioral expectations for all students and exercise professional independence from labor unions, trade associations, and advocacy organizations.
Finally, schools should affirm parental rights, including the right to receive financial support to choose the educational environment that best meets the needs of their families.
Overhyped fixes are all too common in education reform, but they are no substitute for schools that get the basics right.
