Obama-era reforms spurred learning loss long before COVID-19, report says

A new report finds student learning was declining years before COVID-19 and has failed to recover for most schools, pointing to failures stemming from the Obama era.

A study conducted by researchers at Stanford University, Harvard University and Dartmouth College found U.S. student test scores had already “declined significantly before the pandemic” and have continued to lag, especially in middle-income districts, despite some recovery.

The report pegs the “learning recession” as starting seven years before COVID-19, or in 2013, when President Barack Obama’s administration began rolling back testing requirements from No Child Left Behind. Obama also instituted Common Core, a controversial curriculum critics have blamed for worsening schools. While multiple states have abandoned it, its standards are still present in many textbooks and teacher training materials.

“Beginning with the 2012-13 school year, the Obama administration began granting waivers to states, allowing them flexibility from NCLB accountability requirements in exchange for state adoption of approved reform plans,” the report states. “Although the waivers were not official until 2012-13, many states stopped identifying schools not making AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) in 2012, in anticipation of the waivers.”

By 2014, 44 states had received waivers, effectively nullifying the program, which forced failing schools to reform or close. After the change, the number of schools identified as “failing” or schools of “focus” or “priority” dramatically declined.

Congress then replaced No Child Left Behind with the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, allowing states to design their own accountability measures. The report notes the change prevented failing schools from experiencing the most severe consequences under No Child Left Behind, which took effect after multiple years of failing, and speculates school improvement would have continued had it not been for Obama-era disruptions.

Instead of blaming the pandemic for recent learning loss, the report says COVID-19 policies such as lockdowns and the closing of many public schools accelerated what was already taking place.

The study also notes the rise of social media coincided with declining scores and that already low-achieving students were the most affected. Technology continues to affect education, with many states implementing cellphone bans in recent years that could contribute to rising test scores.

The researchers propose a national effort to implement literacy reforms, such as those used by Florida and Mississippi, to improve reading, continued monitoring of cellphone usage among teens, and pairing struggling schools with successful schools for mentorship.

But the amount of lost progress is striking.

“For nearly 25 years between 1990 and 2013, math achievement in grades 4 and 8 rose steadily, improving by more than two grade equivalents over that time period. The 4th grade students in 2013 were scoring at a similar level to 6th graders in 1990. Reading achievement also rose, albeit by somewhat less than one grade equivalent.

“The ‘learning recession’ began before the pandemic and only turned around in 2022 in math and in 2024 in reading. As with an economic recession, recovery is possible – but it requires decisive action.”

Sean Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality at Stanford Graduate School of Education, said the steady decline since 2013 ended two decades of dramatic progress. This “shows that we can improve our public schools and equalize educational opportunity. But we haven’t been doing much of that for the last decade.”