In Early May, the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, issued their “Education Scorecard.” It was titled “From Learning Recession to Learning Recovery: Understanding the Sources of U.S. K-12 Improvement.”

Though many of its findings are somewhat bleak, the report also finds “initial evidence on state-led literacy reforms by comparing state reading gains against their implementation of evidence-based reading reforms.”

One of its most significant findings: “Since 2022, the recovery has been U-shaped,” with larger improvements among the highest and lowest income school districts in the country.

Middle income districts – with between 30 and 70 percent of students receiving federally subsidized lunches – have seen the least improvement on average. The recovery in achievement in the highest poverty districts sems largely due to the federal pandemic relief. Without federal relief, the average high-poverty district would have remained at 2022 levels of achievement.”

Interestingly math achievements rebounded as soon as the pandemic ebbed, with “annual rates of improvement returning to pre-2013 levels in 2024.” But reading took somewhat longer to turnaround and evidence of that only began to appear in 2025. 

A giant takeaway: “All of the states which improved in reading between 2022 and 2025 were implementing comprehensive ‘science of reading reforms’. . .  None of the states which had eschewed literacy reforms as of January 2024 improved in reading between 2022 and 2025.”

The report made four significant recommendations for leaders in education, which included:

• “Now that the federal pandemic relief has expired, states should consider schools’ achievement losses since 2019 when identifying schools for comprehensive support and improvement.” 

• “Lowering student absences remains a priority. If absence rates had returned to pre-pandemic levels, recovery would have been meaningfully faster. Moreover, getting students back into the habit of reliable attendance will continue to pay off for years into the future.” 

• “It is crucial to learn more about the factors that have led to declining scores and the potential different strategies for improving student performance.” To that end, the report suggested that the federal government should support research in three areas including the role of social media; early literacy reforms; and lowering absenteeism.

• Paring school districts that have been improving with one or more similar districts in their state will help “to compare notes on recovery strategies. A small investment, such as paying travel expenses for teams to visit in person in the fall, could yield large dividends if districts successfully share ideas for improvement.”

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