Briefs · Education and Upskilling
One in Ten Students Is Back. Louisiana Is the Only State That Can Say So Twice.
Six years after the pandemic closed the schools, the recovery has stalled. That is the verdict of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, in its fifth annual State of the American Student report.
Only 10.5% of American students attend a district that has returned to pre-pandemic achievement in both maths and reading. One in ten, in other words, is back. Nine in ten are not.
Louisiana stands alone. It is the only state whose average scores have risen above 2019 levels in both subjects. Mississippi and Alabama are posting real gains too, while Florida, with similarly comprehensive reforms, ranks last among states in reading recovery.
Attendance has not recovered anywhere. No state is back to its pre-pandemic attendance levels: 23% of students were chronically absent in 2024–25, against 15% before the pandemic.
The report’s prescription is dull, which is the point. Only 13 states have clear, specific learning goals a parent could actually find; 11 have published none at all. The gaps are widening, too: since 2022, the top 10% of eighth graders gained three NAEP maths points while the bottom 10% lost five.
Conclusion: American students are not okay, but rather unrecovered — and one state, Louisiana, is doing the homework for the other forty-nine.
Summary in our own words. The original belongs to its publisher.