Abysmal National Report Card Is Reminder of Why Change Is Welcome in DC

The policies coming out of Washington have the potential to affect Americans who have not even been born yet, whether for good or bad.

Take the confirmation hearing of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy’s testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday and argued that the U.S. healthcare and food system needs to do a better job of keeping American’s healthy, and this can begin by taking practical steps to remove processed foods from school lunch programs.

Speaking of the health and safety of posterity, on Tuesday President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning the use of federal dollars to fund or support irreversible transgender medical interventions for children.

But not all the news coming out of the government is positive for kids right now. The latest National Report Card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress pains an abysmal picture of education across the U.S.

The report card is published every two years and assesses the average reading and math scores for fourth and eighth graders. The report showed significant declines for students when it was published in 2022, but the decline was somewhat expected in the wake of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the assessment completed in 2024 and published Wednesday show little to no improvement for student’s math and reading proficiency.

In 2024, 39% percent of fourth grade students performed at or above the proficient math level that is set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This is 3% higher compared to 2022, but 2 percentage points lower than in 2019.

Eighth grade math scores are at 28% proficiency, which is about the same as 2022 scores, but eight points lower compared to 2019.

Reading scores showed an even greater decline than math.

In 2024, 31% of fourth grade students performed at or above the proficient level on the reading assessment. This is a 2 percentage point decline compared to 2022 and 4 percentage points lower than 2019, according to the report card.

And 30% of eighth grade students performed at or above the proficient level in 2024, which was not significantly different from 2022, but lower compared to 2019.

On this week’s edition of Problematic Women, we breakdown the ways some of the biggest pieces of news this week could affect the next generation for years to come.