The nation’s report card hits crisis level
Learning loss, not culture wars, should be our focus in education

The past several weeks have been the stuff of nightmares for managing editors. It has been nonstop breaking news — the inauguration, dozens of presidential executive orders turning the federal government on its head. Unexpected pardons from two presidents and the first ICE immigration raids. Contentious confirmation battles along with unneighborly tariff threats and, not surprisingly, wobbly markets on Wall Street. Then it was presidential field trips, aviation disasters and waves of federal firings throwing Washington into a full-blown panic.
The pace of Trump’s return to the Oval Office has left the opposition and the media scrambling to keep up, so I hesitate to raise yet one more national crisis. But the release of the “nation’s report card” last week, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores, painted an alarmingly bleak picture of America’s education system that rises to the level of most of the crises of the past two weeks.
The harsh truth is that millions of America’s fourth graders and eighth graders can’t read or write at a basic level. We have become home to the world’s “C” students, which threatens both our national security and our economic power.
That sounds like hyperbole. It isn’t.
The NAEP results are beyond sobering. The tests found that 40 percent of the country’s fourth graders and a third of eighth graders were “below basic” in reading, incapable of understanding even the central idea of a text. For these children, it means they are dramatically hampered in their ability to learn.
The math numbers are equally alarming. Twenty-four percent of fourth graders and 39 percent of eighth graders were below basic in math, meaning those fourth graders are unable to add or subtract multidigit whole numbers, identify even and odd numbers or read and interpret scales and tables, while those eighth graders are unable to use operations to solve real-world problems involving fractions or determine measurements like area and volume even with the aid of a labeled diagram. With math-based skills becoming even more essential in this age of AI, another generation of American children without those skills puts them and the country at risk.
These disturbing results were repeated in the latest report from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assessment, with U.S. fourth graders declining 18 points in math and eighth graders declining 27 points. But other countries in the world have not seen the same level of decline. In 2019, the U.S. fourth grade math average was lower than 14 countries, and in 2023, it was lower than 21. The U.S. eighth grade math average in 2019 was lower than 10 countries, and in 2023, it was lower than 19.
Those trying to avoid accountability are already blaming the declining scores on COVID. But one of the main takeaways from the NAEP data is that the drops cannot all be attributed to the lingering effects of the pandemic. In fact, reading declines predate the pandemic, beginning in 2019. Overall, from 2017 to 2024, fourth-grade and eighth-grade reading proficiency declined by 6 points (going from 37 percent at/above proficient to 31 percent for fourth grade, and from 36 percent to 30 percent in eighth grade).
What’s the solution? It starts with a focus on student outcomes and accountability, and an emphasis on how America’s students are actually performing. President and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center (and former Secretary of Education) Margaret Spellings called the NAEP scores “a wake-up call for accountability.” Louisiana emerged as one of the few bright spots in the NAEP data, as the only state whose fourth-grade reading scores were higher than in 2019. In comments to the education website The 74, John White, state education superintendent from 2012 to 2020, credited their results to the state’s decision to be “transparent about the results schools achieve.”
Now is not the time to abandon tests like NAEP. A renewed emphasis on strong accountability is needed now more than ever to accurately measure, through testing, where students are in their learning using valid, reliable and comparable data. All three of these characteristics are especially important in the context of grade inflation, which 47 percent of the electorate called a “widespread problem” last year. Only 6 percent said it is “not a problem at all.”
But the big education story of the last several weeks has been what the Trump administration is going to do with the Department of Education. Reform it? House crucial core competencies like NAEP testing and state funding distribution under a different structure? Or do away with it completely?
Any of these solutions would likely require congressional action, a tough hill to climb in either chamber. Some of the criticisms of the DOE may be warranted. But the critical issue is that the nation is in dire need of a plan to improve student outcomes. When you ask voters which should be the higher priority when it comes to education, they overwhelmingly say learning loss over culture war issues. In the Winston Group 2024 postelection survey, 66 percent said “dealing with learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic and boosting student achievement” should be the higher priority, compared to 25 percent who said it should be dealing with cultural issues like critical race theory or transgender issues.
This isn’t to say that “culture war” issues didn’t play any role in the 2024 elections. But when it comes to our education priorities, improving student outcomes should be, far and away, first on the list. Reliable testing like NAEP is a valuable tool for parents and the education community at every level to assess the performance of their students and get them back on track.
The very future of the nation depends on our ability to deliver student outcomes that give every child the opportunity to succeed and the country the “educated citizenry” it needs, as Jefferson believed, to remain free.
This column has been corrected to reflect the number of executive orders issued so far by Donald Trump.
David Winston is the president of The Winston Group and a longtime adviser to congressional Republicans. He previously served as the director of planning for Speaker Newt Gingrich. He advises Fortune 100 companies, foundations and nonprofit organizations on strategic planning and public policy issues, as well as serving as an election analyst for CBS News.