The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what American students know, recently released its 2022 report card on 9-year-old students. The results were concerning: reading showed the largest drop since 1990 and math dropped for the first time since NAEP testing began in the 1970s.

The headline from a New York Times article about the NAEP report, “The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading,” delivers a clear message: pandemic-related deficits in academic progress are real, and, most likely, this is just a glimpse of what is to be revealed by the forthcoming 2022 report cards for 13-year-old students and 17-year-old students.

As an education company that has seen multiple massive overhauls in the education and test preparation industries since we started in 2001, Academic Approach takes a tempered, big-picture, research-driven approach when considering industry trends or viral articles. Is the 2022 NAEP report card reason to panic? Absolutely not.

However, this initial NAEP report card does reinforce something we’ve seen in both our data on individual student progress and school-wide testing: achievement is down. Students in the past two years are simply scoring lower and growing more slowly.

What does this suggest?

Interrupted learning means that—in many cases—less academic material has been covered and less personalization of instruction has taken place. Therefore, the need for supplementing education has intensified.

The NAEP report highlights this reality. Students across the board have lost ground. When looking at students in the 90th percentile, the data show a 2-point drop in reading and a 3-point drop in math; students in the 10th percentile register a 10-point drop in reading and a 12-point drop in math. The overall concern is that once a student falls behind at any level, it becomes harder and harder to catch up.

Future Academic Potential

What does this mean for your student?

It’s always been important—but perhaps more so than ever— to properly assess how well students have mastered essential college readiness skills. Parents can help by talking with teachers, gathering feedback from quizzes and tests, and observing students’ academic behaviors and mindsets.

Try to get granular in your understanding of the specific skills your student needs to master.

If you’re not sure where to start, contact us. We’ll help you assess your student by taking the following steps:

• Administer a practice test (high school entrance exam, ACT, PSAT, or SAT) that covers essential reading, grammar, and math skills
• Provide you with a complimentary consultation to analyze your student’s results
• Perform a quantitative analysis (score-driven, skills-driven) as well as a qualitative analysis (identifying your student’s learning style and personalized needs)
• Help you determine the type and timing of any supplement needed to address your student’s learning needs and help your student maximize their learning potential

Understanding your student’s current academic performance is the crucial first step in helping your student make up for any learning loss and reach their full academic potential. We expect more data on learning loss to continue to illuminate the challenges students are facing and may continue to face in the coming years. Academic Approach is ready to meet these challenges and is here to help.

For more information, visit academicapproach.com/hinsdaleliving or call 630-454-9873.