New test results for 13-year-olds, including from 10 NYC schools, show national decline in reading and math
NEW YORK -- New national tests show math and reading scores for U.S. 13-year-olds, including New York City students, have declined to the lowest levels in decades.
Students or color and low-income students scored even lower.
During a news conference on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks said they're not surprised.
The mayor posed with students after announcing a new program with Google to provide pipelines for city students into the tech sector. It came as worrisome new test results by the National Assessment of Educational Progress show a dramatic drop in math and reading scores across the the country. Ten New York City schools were included in the results.
"It is not surprising at all that the scores continue to drop. The scores have been bad for a long time," Banks said.
The NAEP tests show 13-year-olds scored an average of 256 out of 500 in reading. The last time it was that low was in 2004. The math score was 271 out of 500. The last time it was that low was in 1990.
The results come after many students here and across the nation struggled with remote learning during the pandemic. The NAEP scores of low-income students of color suffered greater declines.
"The first way to fix this problem is to acknowledge we have a problem. We have denied this problem for so long and I personally believe the denial of the problem is who was greatly impacted. All of our children are hurting, but Black and brown children are disproportionately impacted by this," Adams said.
The mayor insisted that if there wasn't a racial component educational officials would have declared a national emergency.
"I just think that people think Black and brown children are dispensable," Adams said.
The chancellor blames the low scores on the way city students are taught to read.
"If kids don't learn to read well by the third grade, it connects to everything else. So all these reports that come out, they're just reaffirming what we could have already predicted," Banks said.
The mayor and chancellor said the way to pull New York City students up by their bootstraps is to change to a phonics-based reading system. It will start this fall.
New York state proficiency tests released last year show reading scores among students in grades 3 through 8 rose 1.6 points to 49%, compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Math scores plunged 7.6% to just under 38%.
