Study: Damage from NAEP Math Losses Could Total Nearly $1 Trillion

November 1, 2022

Researchers found that gains in eighth-grade math are closely correlated with outcomes like high school graduation, college enrollment, and earnings

Federal test scores released last week illustrated the extent of COVID’s impact on K-12 learning, revealing the largest-ever math declines in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In virtually every state and major school district, fourth and eighth graders demonstrated far less mastery over the subject than students who took the test before the pandemic.

But that academic slippage isn’t measured only in scale points and proficiency standards. In a new study timed to coincide with the NAEP release, researchers found that the erosion of math skills experienced by America’s eighth graders may lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings over the coming decades. Other important life trends, including high school graduation, college enrollment, and criminal arrests, are also likely to be adversely affected by years of thwarted schooling. 

The research offers a perspective on the immediate damage wrought by the pandemic, but also a penetrating observation about the relationship between students’ performance on standardized tests and their chances of future success. Douglas O. Staiger, an economics professor at Dartmouth and one of the paper’s co-authors, said that part of the motivation for the work was to explore whether progress on indicators like NAEP is connected to the authentic development of intellectual ability or simply the product of “teaching to the test.” 

“We interpret this evidence as saying that NAEP means something,” Staiger said. “When there are improvements in scores, those kids coming out of school are going to have better outcomes later in life. And we can infer from this recent decline that all the cohorts in school now are going to do a bit worse than we expected.” 

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