Modesto, Calif. — In the classroom of Nancy Barajas, a sixth-grade teacher, pre-test rituals are anything but ordinary. Before each significant exam, she dims the lights, sets a disco ball spinning, and cranks up the tunes from her playlist. This lively atmosphere helps her students dance into a mindset of confidence, ready to tackle their tests.
Recently, there’s been plenty of reason to rejoice in Modesto, California’s elementary schools. Both reading and math scores have shown a steady upward trend over the past few years.
However, the national picture is far less encouraging. Experts are sounding the alarm on what they call a “reading recession” in the U.S., a decline that began even before the pandemic disrupted education.
A team of scholars from Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth have examined state test results from grades three through eight across more than 5,000 school districts in 38 states. This comprehensive analysis feeds into a national Education Scorecard, allowing for insightful comparisons across different regions.
The findings are troubling: just five states and the District of Columbia showed any significant improvement in reading scores between 2022 and 2025. On a national scale, students are lagging nearly half a grade level in reading compared to pre-pandemic levels, with only marginally better performance in math.
Despite schools’ efforts to help students recover from the educational disruptions of COVID-19, the decline in reading scores has been ongoing. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, this downward trend in reading began back in 2013 for eighth graders and in 2015 for fourth graders.
“The pandemic was the mudslide that had followed seven years of steady erosion in achievement,” said Thomas Kane, a Harvard professor who helped create the Education Scorecard.
“The ‘learning recession’ started a decade ago, after policymakers switched off the early warning system of test-based accountability and social media took over children’s lives.”
But, he continued, that’s being reversed by “a small group of state leaders who have started digging out by changing how students learn to read, and 108 local school districts that are finding ways to get students learning again.
“The recovery of U.S. education has begun. But it’s up to the rest of us to spread it.”
States and school districts making progress are doing so largely by shifting toward phonics-based instruction and providing extra support for struggling readers.
The picture is also brighter in math.
Almost every state in the analysis saw improvements in math test scores from 2022 to 2025. Student absenteeism also declined in most states. In over 400 U.S. school districts, including Modesto, reading or math growth outpaced demographically similar districts in the same state.
Turning the “reading recession” around
Researchers are still debating the causes of the “reading recession.”
One possible factor, researchers say, is the rise of social media on smartphones and corresponding declines in kids’ recreational reading. States have also backed off on strict consequences for schools whose students fail to make progress on standardized tests, Kane said.
But the states that improved reading scores – notably Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana – all had one thing in common: They ordered schools to teach with a phonics-based approach known as the “science of reading.”
For years, schools taught reading using approaches that de-emphasized phonics and encouraged strategies such as guessing words based on context clues. As reading scores tumbled over the past decade, parents, scholars and literacy advocates pushed for teaching methods that align with decades of research about how kids learn to read – largely by sounding out words.
Along with reforming teaching methods, states have also required schools to screen for learning disabilities such as dyslexia and to hire coaches to help teachers improve their reading instruction.
That said, “science of reading” reforms didn’t guarantee success. Some states, including Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, changed parts of their reading instruction but still saw test scores fall.
In Modesto, reading instruction was revamped during the pandemic, and math a couple years earlier. The district created a department to help students who are still learning English. Schools also ramped up teacher training, paying educators $5,000 to complete an extensive “science of reading” program called LETRS, or Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling.
Modesto’s test scores grew enough to represent an extra 18 weeks of learning in math and 13 weeks in reading. Nevertheless, the district still has a way to go: Overall scores remain far below grade level.
Detroit turning things around
A focus on reading has also improved scores in Detroit – but so have efforts to get kids in school more consistently. For years, the large urban district struggled with deplorable school conditions, leading to a 2016 lawsuit in which students argued they’d been denied the “right to read.”
The lawsuit ended in a settlement of over $94 million, money that helped move the needle. While the district is still far below the national average, student test scores have grown faster than in similar urban districts in Michigan.
“It took a lot to rebuild systems, and now kids are learning at higher levels, but I’m still not satisfied. And I think that’s the next challenge: continuing to motivate, inspire and change things,” said Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.
The money has helped Munger Elementary-Middle School, located in a largely Latino neighborhood in Detroit, to employ 18 educators who give kids extra support in small groups. An attendance agent also makes calls to the homes of absent students, even showing up at their doors.
Just a few years ago, says first grade teacher Samantha Ciaffone, it was normal for about seven or eight kids to be absent from her class every day. Now it’s usually only one or two.
“It allows us to be better educators to see kids consistently in the seat instead of once or twice a week,” said Ciaffone. “It makes such a difference.”
The South in the vanguard
For the last decade, the South has stood out as a region leading the way on education reforms – bucking an established trend of landing at the bottom of education rankings. Southern states were quick to change to research-based teaching methods, and states have paid to train and coach teachers.
It’s paid off. Louisiana and Alabama were the only states where math scores were higher in 2025 than pre-pandemic. Louisiana is also the only state that beat its pre-pandemic average in reading, with 87% of traditional public school students attending a district where scores are higher than in 2019.
Alabama had standout gains in reading following the pandemic, driven by a state law requiring every school to use phonics-based instruction. The Legislature modeled math reforms in 2022 off Alabama’s reading successes. The state’s Numeracy Act standardized math instruction, required regular testing and mandated intervention for kids who lacked adequate math skills.
Oxmoor Valley Elementary in Birmingham hired a full-time math specialist this year to help struggling kids. The school, which made the state’s “failing” list in 2016, has steadily improved math and reading scores, although a majority of kids still test below proficient in both subjects.
“We can provide all of these supports, but at the same time, hold kids to high expectations,” Birmingham Superintendent Mark Sullivan said.
Researchers stress such progress is possible across the U.S., because it’s been done before. Starting in the 1990s, the country saw decades of growth in test scores and graduation rates, while racial disparities declined. That progress continued until the mid-2010s.
“We made enormous progress as a country in terms of educational success from over a 30-year period. Test scores went up dramatically,” said Stanford professor Sean Reardon. “And so I think that says, as a country, we can improve education and educational opportunity.”
At Modesto’s Fairview Elementary, where Barajas teaches, students now practice their reading speed and fluency every day. After a dance break, the class reads a one-page text together in unison for one minute, then students split into pairs to read again. Students learning English are paired with native English speakers, and each child gets a turn reading with Barajas.
“Eventually, you get through the word like it’s water,” one boy said. “You just say it smooth.”
