K-12 Public Education’s Pandemic Hangover Lasts Into 2025 – Forbes

As we begin 2025, the pandemic disruption to K-12 public schools continues to haunt America’s young people. Some of its effects result from school closures, while others predate the pandemic but were made worse by these closures.

“We’re in the midst of an education depression. By depression, I mean an extended era of shrinking outcomes and opportunity. This goes far beyond the pandemic,” writes Tim Daly in The Education Daly.

So our young people, especially the most vulnerable, face a diminished future. Stanford University economist Eric Hanushek calculates that if learning loss is not reversed, the average student’s lifetime earnings will be 6% lower, the equivalent of a 6% income tax surcharge on students’ working lives. Nor will these losses be equally distributed as the most disadvantaged will suffer the worst consequences.

While it’s not the best of times for K-12 public schools, it’s not the worst of times. The pandemic hangover has not disappeared. But it shows signs of receding.

As we enter 2025, here are three examples of K-12 post-pandemic bad news and three examples of good news. The challenge for K-12 in 2025 will be to candid about the problems and the need to expand the use of promising solutions.

Bad News

Weak student academic results: The gloom overshadowing K-12 schools begins with declining test scores. For example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Nation’s Report card, reports that average scores for age 9 students in 2022 declined 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020. This is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990 and the first-ever score decline in mathematics. In both subjects, scores for lower-performing age 9 students declined more than scores for higher-performing students compared to 2020.

The latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) shows that between 2019 and 2023, U.S. mathematics performance declined 18 points in fourth grade and 27 points in 8^th grade. Science scores in both grades were around the same over that period but were 9 points lower for fourth graders in 2023 compared to the first TIMSS assessment in 1995.

Finally, there is a gender gap in learning loss, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of test scores. “Since 2019, girls’ test scores have dropped sharply, often to the lowest point in decades. Boys’ scores have also fallen during that time, but the decline among girls has been more severe,” writes Matt Barnum.

Declining student mental health and increasing disengagement: The pandemic eroded students’ mental health and disrupted relationships with individuals and institutions. In 2020, mental health visits to emergency departments rose by 24% over pre-pandemic levels for 5 to 11-year-olds and by 31% for 2 to 17-year-olds. Record-high suicides among the general public were reported during the pandemic, rising fastest among young people, who also experienced personal losses. As many as 283,000 lost one or both parents to the pandemic, with about 359,000 losing a primary or secondary caregiver, including a grandparent.

Additionally, students—and teachers—disengaged from school and were absent from the classroom. Student chronic absenteeism—missing at least 10% (or 18 days) of school a year—increased in all states, reaching an all-time high. While rates improved in 2023, they remain 75% higher than before the pandemic. Chronic teacher absenteeism also increased.

Finally, hundreds of thousands of students have disengaged from school, dropping off the rolls. Disengaged students are over seven times as likely as their engaged peers to feel discouraged about the future, according to the Gallup Student Poll, which has studied this issue since 2009. In contrast, engaged students are nearly five times as likely to be hopeful,

District fiscal turmoil: Public school enrollment declined 2.5% from 2019 to 2023, falling 4.5% at the pre-K-8 grade levels while increasing about 2% in grades 9–12, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Twenty-nine states lost 2% or more of their public school students. Only four states and the District of Columbia increased enrollment by more than 1%, with 17 states having either small or insignificant growth. Declining student enrollment means less school funding because it’s based on enrollment.

Additionally, the $190 billion pandemic relief for K-12 schools has ended, causing fiscal mayhem, especially in big-city school districts. And while some states are increasing support for K-12 education, others are decreasing support. Inflation also has squeezed district budgets, notably salary and benefits. This operating environment led Moody’s, the credit rating agency, to lower its outlook for traditional K-12 school districts from stable to negative.

Good News

Federal money made a difference: The unprecedented and massive influx of $190 billion in federal relief funding accelerated student academic recovery. One analysis of 2022-2023 mathematics and reading test scores for grades 3 to 8 students from more than 5,000 districts in 30 states found that every $1,000 received per student typically added about 6 days of learning progress in mathematics and 3 days in reading. These academic gains per dollar are similar to what other researchers have found for the effects of revenue increases in school spending for improving test scores.

Districts with the highest poverty levels typically received the most money and often had significant learning loss recovery. However, since these students typically had low levels of academic achievement to start and experienced the most learning loss, recovery to pre-pandemic learning levels is still far below grade level.

Finally, while money made a difference, not all learning loss recovery is due to federal investment. State and district policies on accountability, testing, and other issues will likely affect recovery efforts.

Evidence-based programs overcome learning loss: No one strategy provides a roadmap for a learning loss recovery plan, but two approaches are proving essential. One effective strategy is high-dosage tutoring, which can be implemented differently. Its primary features include four or fewer students working with a trained tutor during school for at least 30 minutes, no less than three days per week, for several months.

This approach produces impressive academic results, according to Stanford University researchers at the National Student Support Accelerator. Elementary students gain more than four months’ worth of reading instruction, and high school students earn more than 10 months of mathematics instruction, equivalent to an additional school year. This high-impact tutoring approach also works for kindergarten students and in online learning settings and has the added benefit of re-engaging students in school.

Another effective strategy for overcoming learning loss is using high-quality classroom instructional materials and teacher professional development. For example, multiple state-level efforts are underway to improve literacy based on the science of reading. Mississippi’s successful work to improve literacy and Tennessee’s early literacy are examples of this state legislation. Between 2019 and 2022, 223 laws based on the science of reading were enacted in 45 states and the District of Columbia, according to a report from the American Federation of Teachers. It calls these laws “an ambitious, bipartisan, state-driven effort to improve U.S. reading outcomes through multilayered investments in teachers and students.”

Opportunity pluralism: The college-for-all model that has been part of K-12 education for at least the last twenty-five years has lost its glow for the American public, including young people. Harvard professor of government Michael Sandel calls this approach the credentialist prejudice, writing that “Disdain for the less educated is the last acceptable prejudice.”

This model is being replaced by opportunity pluralism, an approach to education and training that broadens the range of opportunities available to individuals at any stage of their lives. It has broad, bipartisan political support.

In K-12 education, opportunity pluralism aims to provide young people with multiple pathways to opportunity, including the college pathway. For example, at least 43 states allow high school students to take career and technical education courses for which they can receive high school and college credit. This approach supports creating career pathway programs that immerse young people in education, training, and work-based learning approaches like internships and apprenticeships.

This approach creates a virtuous cycle of career education that ensures young people acquire the knowledge, networks, and identity they need to pursue opportunity. These programs differ from the vocational education of old which placed students into different tracks and occupational destinations based chiefly on family background.

So, while it’s not the best of times for K-12 education, it’s not the worst of times. We must be candid about K-12’s lingering problems. But we must also promote promising solutions that evidence suggests can overcome those problems.

That’s the K-12 challenge for 2025.

Happy New Year.