MADISON, Wis. — Scores from the National Report Card show nationwide, students’ scores in math and reading dropped through the pandemic. 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is given to 4th graders and 8th graders every two years. Because students across the country take the same exam, it’s the best apples-to-apples measurement of their progress.

It’ll come as no surprise to anyone that scores dropped pretty much across the board. Math scores had their biggest decrease ever, according to the Associated Press.

Overall, Wisconsin’s 4th graders are more on track than the 8th graders. The elementary students’ drops weren’t statistically significant, according to the state’s Department of Public Instruction. 

However, the 8th graders are struggling more in those reading and math categories. 

Staff from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) said part of that may be due to the turbulence they, along with everybody else, have experienced over the last two years. 

“We’re hearing from the field that our students are in a space where they really need a lot of social and emotional wellbeing work, they need a lot of mental health support,” said Abigail Swetz, the DPI Director of Communications. “We know our teachers are in a tough situation too, because they need that social and emotional support.” 

The report illuminated one of Wisconsin’s biggest challenges in education. The state has the worst gap in test scores between Black students and white students of any state in the nation. The only exception is Washington D.C. 

“It is unacceptable that our achievement gap is the way it is, and I'll start by saying that we can't call it an achievement gap,” Swetz said. “It's a gap in in a lot of things … in terms of racial disparities, it's a gap in the outputs of what is happening in our schools. And if we're going to do anything about those, we have to change the inputs to make sure that those resources, those supports, that that representation in curriculum looks different.” 

Swetz said the path forward is in allocating the right funding to public schools. She said the DPI’s next biennial budget includes money for every district in the state to have at least one mental health professional. 

That budget will get reviewed by the governor and legislature next year.