Can I just say something...
I do not accept the premise that these results are shocking.
Sobering. Yes. Shocking. Hardly.
If you have been in classrooms, listened to educators, or watched K-12 students struggle in schools that refuse to adapt to them, None of this is shocking.
We have spent the past few years treating "learning loss" as a temporary setback, believing that with enough tutoring, summer school, AI Chatbots, and remediation, students would simply "catch up" and "bounce back."
But bounce back to what?
I want to be clear that the mechanics of teaching are not broken. But the conditions of learning have changed—and we, as a nation, have failed to adapt to them.
There are three hard truths that this data continues to reinforce for me.
1. Our students still sit in classrooms that are not built for them. And yet, their experiences, their challenges, their needs—everything has shifted even further. But instead of reimagining how we support them, we still cling to outdated structures that no longer fit this moment.
2. Teachers are doing their part. But we’ve handed them an impossible task—juggling outdated practices, ever-growing expectations, and in many communities, diminishing support due to the funding cliff—all while trying to meet the increasingly complex needs of students.
3. We keep layering interventions on top of a fractured foundation. NAEP scores don’t reflect a pandemic problem. These declines started before 2020. They reflect a long-standing failure to create a system that actually meets the needs of the students we claim to serve.
A wise friend once told me, "Stop rearranging the furniture in a house with a cracked foundation." We continue tweaking policies, adjusting standards, and layering new programs onto a system that, in many cases, was never structurally sound to begin with. But real change demands more than adjustments—it requires thoughtful, systemic improvements that honor what works while addressing what no longer serves our students.
There are states and districts daring to disrupt the status quo and do things differently. States like Louisiana and districts like Houston ISD are proving that bold, systemic shifts can drive meaningful change—they are blueprints we can all learn from.
We have some of the most brilliant minds in the world working to solve some of our country’s most pressing challenges—climate change, healthcare, AI, the economy. At what point will we realize that education is one of them? That the future we are trying to build depends on what we choose to do for students right now?
The educators doing this work every day deserve more than another set of dire headlines. They deserve more than to have their profession politicized. They deserve clear-eyed leadership, bold decisions, and a system designed for today’s realities.
#Education #NAEP #Leadership
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