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America’s economic future is being shaped in its classrooms. Unfortunately, latest results on the Nation’s Report Card show too many students are falling behind in reading and math — the foundation of productivity and prosperity.

These scores are not just numbers; they signal lost earning potential for today’s children and weakened competitiveness for tomorrow’s workforce. The pandemic deepened the decline, but students were already behind. Without action, the cost will be measured in lost opportunity and billions in economic losses.

from Stanford shows losses in student achievement before and after the pandemic equal those during the pandemic, and that the losses are continuing. The study found restoring student achievement to 2013 levels would raise the lifetime earnings of today’s average student by an estimated 8% — producing dramatic and sustained gains for our nation’s economy.

For our kids to be more financially successful as they age into the workforce, schools have to reverse NAEP declines over the past decade. There’s no time to spare.

This year’s NAEP proficiency results for public school students show reading scores have reached their , with only 29% of eighth graders and 30% of fourth graders achieving a proficient score. While the slide in has slowed, scores still remain below pre-pandemic levels, and the performance gap between high- and low-performing students has .

Lower performances by today’s students mean a down the road; proficiency in literacy and numeracy has been linked to several , including more fruitful college opportunities and higher wage jobs.

The research from Stanford estimates learning loss over the past decade has cost our country over . This translates into having an average of 6% higher GDP every year for the rest of this century if students were still at 2013 NAEP proficiency levels.

At the individual level, the average current student can expect to have a lifetime income that is 8% below that of a 2013 graduate. Because disadvantaged students have suffered deeper learning losses, their incomes can be expected to fall by over 10%.   

For our students to earn more — and be able to compete with their peers worldwide — educators can’t leave their outcomes to guesswork. Schools need to ensure students are learning the fundamentals using evidence-backed methods — and constantly and consistently measure their progress using clear, objective standards.

Some states made noteworthy progress on NAEP this year: Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. Each has a track record of high expectations and strong accountability.

These states use an that puts reading and math achievement front and center. They measure what matters — proficiency and growth — and they report results in a way families and educators can understand. Transparency and rigor are fueling their progress.

It has been very difficult to implement effective large-scale reforms, but we now have examples of getting strong increases in literacy and mathematical proficiency when evidence-based policy solutions are implemented faithfully. For example, states are seeing academic growth using the following three approaches.

First, states need to invest in effective personnel. They can do this by and by supporting strong teaching through professional development in evidence-based practices such as use of high-quality instructional materials and assessment data to inform instruction. Further, hiring of math and has shown success.

Using data from and , which are short assessments to flag struggling students early, has helped ensure schools are using necessary interventions with high quality instructional materials. While many successful states mandate the use of screeners, others can incentivize districts to use them by providing the materials for free.

Finally, Alabama has shown that it is possible to begin turning around the math problem. Two years after passing the , Alabama has returned to for fourth grade NAEP math, jumping from last in the nation in 2019 to 31^st this year. This comprehensive math law includes such as elementary school math coaches; increasing the amount of math instruction per day to 60+ minutes; and the adoption of high-quality instructional materials.

Students aren’t going to catch up if states don’t make their progress a priority. Some states are leading the way, but more policymakers need to focus on improving student outcomes using tested methods that raise the bar and measure progress. The nation’s collective economic future depends on rewarding effective schools and reversing the achievement slides of the past dozen years.

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