The Latest Breaking News from Math

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The national test considered the gold standard of whether schoolchildren are gaining or slipping has delivered alarming news: Kids are backsliding in both math and reading. Thirteen-year-olds assessed in the fall of 2022 scored about the same in reading as those who took the test in 1971, when it was…

Newly released data from national test scores in reading and math show a worrisome picture of student learning loss since the pandemic.

The drops in test scores were the largest ever recorded. The math score for 13-year-olds dropped the most in 50 years, to a 1990 level, and reading has gone back to 2004.

The pandemic is only part of the reason why scores appear to be worsening

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Scores have been dropping for a decade.

Math and reading scores among America’s 13-year-olds fell to their lowest levels in decades, with math scores plunging by the largest margin ever recorded

Pupils 'furious' over a painfully difficult math question on their GCSE paper, which asks them to find the 'shaded area' of a peculiar-looking shape