A concerning report from federal testing data in 2025 reveals that average math scores for 9- and 13-year-olds in the United States remain lower than they were a decade ago. This alarming trend has raised red flags among educators and economists alike, who worry about the long-term impact on the nation's workforce.
Beyond the Pandemic
While pandemic-related disruptions certainly exacerbated the issue, the data shows that math scores have actually been stagnant since 2012. This long-term flatline challenges the assumption that low performance is solely a recent problem. “We can clearly see that this isn’t just a pandemic story,” said Matthew Soldner, acting director of the Institute of Education Sciences and acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. The findings come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s long-term trend test, which has tracked math and reading skills of 9- and 13-year-olds since the 1970s, grading students on a scale from 0 to 500.
Tale of Two Age Groups
The newest results present a mixed picture. Nine-year-olds showed minor progress in math, and their reading scores bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, increasing from 215 to 218 on average. This improvement was consistent across demographics, including boys, low-income children, and students with disabilities. However, achievement for 13-year-olds has barely moved since the last test in 2023. Experts view this stagnation as a developing crisis in middle school education. “The lack of progress among 13-year-olds raises huge questions and ought to serve as a catalyst for change,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. The lowest-performing 13-year-olds now have math scores “statistically equivalent” to the lowest-scoring students from the early 1970s, a fact Muldoon described as “really jarring.”
Massive Economic Cost
Many of the 13-year-olds tested last year are now in high school or about to enter it. Economists warn that these students may face lower lifetime earnings due to gaps in foundational skills. “People with more skills earn more,” said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He estimates that today’s graduates could earn an average of 8 percent less over their lifetimes compared to the Class of 2013, potentially draining $90 trillion from the U.S. economy by 2100. Hanushek compared the issue to blood pressure: “It’s the silent killer you don’t notice until you notice it.” A joint study by Harvard University and Dartmouth College estimated that 48 million public school students enrolled during the 2020-21 school year could lose a combined $900 billion in lifetime earnings due to pandemic-related learning gaps.
Closing Off Career Paths
In the near term, a lack of math skills could lock students out of competitive career paths, according to Courtney Brown, vice president of impact and planning for the Lumina Foundation. “If students are struggling with basic, foundational math, it’s really going to narrow the range of credentials they can pursue,” Brown said. A recent Lumina and Gallup survey found that over half of U.S. employers are struggling to find qualified applicants. Solid math skills are vital for growing sectors like healthcare, business, information technology, and advanced manufacturing.
How School Policies Shifted
The recent test scores continue a downward trajectory that began in the mid-2010s, following a period of academic growth between 2000 and 2012. During the 2000s, U.S. education was shaped by intense standardized testing, strict teacher evaluations, and rigid federal accountability systems. “By no means were these policies perfect or even sufficient,” said Brian Jacob, a professor of education policy and economics at the University of Michigan. However, they provided “focused attention gave clear targets and provided some incentives,” while bringing more funding to schools. In recent years, federal policy has shifted, giving states more freedom to design their own accountability measures. Schools have reallocated energy toward student mental health, chronic absenteeism, and managing digital devices. Jacob observed: “It may be schools just need to focus on some of these other issues before they’re going to have the bandwidth to get back to kind of measuring student learning.”
Looking for a Way Forward
Despite the bleak data, some experts view the historical growth seen over a decade ago as a blueprint for recovery. “I take from it that we have seen high performance is indeed possible and is something that we can achieve again in the future,” Soldner said, emphasizing that American students are entirely capable of turning things around.
