By: Nathaniel Cline in Virginia Mercury

Despite efforts to rebound from pandemic-era learning losses, Virginia students are still struggling to make meaningful gains in math and reading, according to the latest national assessment results.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his administration acknowledged the challenge Wednesday, revealing that fourth graders showed slight improvement in math but little change in reading, while eighth graders fared worse in both subjects. The findings come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which tested a sample of students in January 2024.

Youngkin said the results reaffirm what the state already knew: “We had big work to do coming out of the pandemic” and a “massive learning loss” that continues to persist. Still, he remains optimistic about Virginia’s ability to turn things around.

“We can take off the roof and lift the floor,” Youngkin said. “We know we can do this.”

The administration was not surprised by the stagnation, noting that students were tested months before taking the Virginia’s Standards of Learning assessments, which have shown some improvements.

Back in 2022, Virginia saw steep declines in both math and reading scores compared to 2019, prompting Youngkin to direct the Virginia Board of Education to raise the state’s testing standards.

NAEP measures academic performance across grades 4, 8, and 12, using a randomly selected sample designed to reflect student diversity across factors like ethnicity, school size, economic background, and gender.

Since the release of Virginia’s 2022 NAEP results, Youngkin’s administration and the General Assembly have poured millions into K-12 public education, rolled out learning recovery grants, and tackled classroom distractions with new guidelines limiting cell phone use in schools.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons pointed to some encouraging trends in the latest Grade 4 results. Economically disadvantaged and English Learner students improved by at least two points in reading, while students with disabilities increased their NAEP proficiency level by four points in math.

But the progress was not universal. Grade 8 scores revealed significant setbacks — math scores dropped by at least four points for economically disadvantaged and English Learner students, while students with disabilities saw a steep 10-point decline in reading.

Coons echoed Youngkin’s concerns, linking the trends to the lingering effects of pandemic-era disruptions.

“We know that we’re working hard, but our students have persistent learning loss,” she said, explaining how students who transitioned between grade levels during the pandemic continue to struggle.

“It’s the transition from those early grades to where content gets complex, reading gets more rigorous, math gets more complicated, and those students missed a lot of that,” Coons said. “And we’re seeing that persistent gap in that learning loss that our educators are working hard showing in our data and our results today.”

With the data underscoring both progress and setbacks, state leaders say the focus remains on ensuring students catch up — especially as expectations continue to rise.