The average math score of 271 points is an unprecedented nine points loss from the 280 points on the previous, pre-COVID exams, given during the last quarter of 2019. Since roughly 12 points equal one grade level, this is a grim decline of three-quarters of an academic year.
Moreover, while America’s 13-year-olds scored 270 points in math in 1990, they had improved by 15 points to a peak 285 points in 2012. Thus, this cohort has suffered a cataclysmic loss of 14 points in the last 11 years, or a regression to the statistically identical score three decades ago.
The reading score for 13-year-olds in 2023 is 256 points, which are four fewer than the 260 points in 2019, and which equal the same unsatisfactory result in 1975.
Math scores for female students plunged by a horrendous 11 points, from 278 to 267, and by seven points for male students, from 281 to 274.
Both genders dropped four points in reading since the 2019 test, females from 265 to 261, and males from 255 to 251.
Therefore, female students have a significant, 10-point advantage in reading, and male students lead by seven points in math.
Among major groups, American Indian/Alaska Native students sank by an abominable 20 points in math, from 275 to 255, and five points in reading, 253 to 248.
Black students dropped by 13 points in math, from 256 to 243, and seven points in reading, from 244 to 237.
Hispanic students lost 10 points in math, from 267 to 257, and three points in reading, 250 to 247.
Asian students declined nine points in math, from 312 to 303, and four points in reading, 284 to 280.
White students dropped six points in math, from 291 to 285, and five points in reading, from 269 to 264.
To summarize, the average loss nationally is a combined 13 points. But American Indian/Alaska Native 13-year-olds dropped 25 points, or a horrible learning loss of 2.1 years.
Black students fell by an appalling 20 points.
Hispanic and Asian students lost 13 points each, and white students 11 points.
On this year's “Nation’s Report Card,” the South has the smallest decline of nine points, seven in math and two in reading. The combined scores for 13-year-olds, in this super-sized region, are 535 points in 2020, and 526 this year.
Conversely, the Northeast declined by a humongous 19 points, from 546 total points to 527 points, including 11 points in math. The Midwest also plunged by 19 points, from 547 to 528, and 11 in math.
The West dropped 12 points, from 537 to 525, including nine in math.
In 2021, the 16 Southern states had a spectacular 19.634 million students in K-12 public schools. They represent 1,822 million more students than the combined 17.812 million in the Northeast’s nine states, with 7.613 million; and the Midwest’s 12 states, with 10.199 million.
The Southern states account for a hefty 40% of the nation’s total enrollment of 49.433 million.
The 13 Western states have 11.987 million students, or 24%. The Midwest share is 21%, and the Northeast’s a puny 15%.
My Newsmax article in January 2023 reported that public-school 4th and 8th graders, in the Republican-governed, mega-states of Texas, Florida and Georgia, had a combined average score of 987 points on the 2022 “Nation’s Report Card.”
By contrast, among the nation’s 12 most populous states, Democratic-governed California, New York and Michigan were the three lowest performers, averaging 976 points.
Eleven of the 16 states in America’s flourishing Southern region currently have a Republican governor. Kentucky and Louisiana, two states with Democratic governors, are holding gubernatorial elections in November.
While Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is running for re-election, his total score of 977 points, on the 2002 “Nation’s Report Card,” is 24 fewer than the 1,001 in 2019. Beshear's 2022 result is the same abysmal average of the three, mega-populated Democratic dystopias.
Furthermore, while white students in the Bluegrass State scored 993 points, or a horrible 22-point decline from the 1015 in 2019, their Black classmates totaled an abysmal 897 points, or a 20-point drop from 897. This 96-point chasm in 2022 equals a mind-boggling eight years of academic achievement.
Attorney General Daniel Cameron, Gov. Beshear’s Republican opponent this year, should hammer home, to his fellow Black Kentuckians, that his administration will definitely improve the rock-bottom academic performance of their public-school children.
In Louisiana, term-limited Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards can’t run for a third 4-year term. But the Pelican State’s Attorney General Jeff Landry, the Republican gubernatorial candidate this year, should still focus on the incumbent’s atrocious score of 963 points on last year’s “Nation’s Report Card.”
Moreover, while the state’s enrollment is 43% white and 42% Black, white students totaled 1018 points and Black students 908 points, or a Grand-Canyon-sized chasm of 110 points, or 9.2 years of academic progress.
Undoubtedly, as was demonstrated by Glenn Youngkin’s upset victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race in 2021, and by Ron DeSantis’ overwhelming re-election in Florida in 2022, Southern parents with children in public schools enthusiastically support Republican candidates who are dedicated to providing them with a first-class education.
Mark Schulte is a retired New York City schoolteacher and mathematician who has written extensively about science and the history of science. Read Mark Schulte's Reports — More Here.