According to new federal data – the most thorough assessment to date of the impact of the pandemic on academic achievement – the vast majority of states saw significant score declines among fourth-eighth graders in math and reading between 2019 and 2022, with students posting the largest score declines ever recorded in math.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the most thorough evaluation of the level of student learning since the pandemic’s peak. The results use a common indicator of student achievement from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Schools, Puerto Rico, and 26 significant urban districts that volunteered to take part in the assessment to show what fourth and eighth grade students in the United States know and are capable of doing.

Since 2019, the national average math score for fourth graders has decreased by 5 points, while the average math score for eighth graders has decreased by 8 points. The average reading score decreased by 3 points for both grades.

The gaps between Black and Hispanic students and white students, students from low-income families and those from families with more resources, and students with disabilities and English learners and their peers—gaps that have long existed but were widened during the pandemic—were the most worrying, though. Every subgroup of students—including those who typically can withstand disruptions more easily, like white students from upper and middle-class families—saw their test scores decline as a result of the pandemic.

However, the new data revealed, as it frequently does, that Black and Hispanic students typically experienced steeper declines. This was especially true in fourth grade math, where their scores fell an average of 7 points, compared to white students, whose scores fell an average of 3. And while their declines weren’t significantly different from white students in other grade-subject combinations, they started from lower levels of academic achievement, meaning many more fell into the basic or below basic level of understanding than did their white peers.