Is it true Johnny can't read?

OMG, LA is catching up!

American education is in crisis.

By Sam Sifton, NY Times

May 13, 2026

Almost everywhere in the country, students’ academic performance is worse than their peers’ was a decade ago, according to district-level test score data that came out this morning.

The numbers are startling. Reading scores were down last year in 83 percent of school districts for which we have data. Math scores were down in 70 percent.

The drops happened in rich districts as well as poor ones — in urban, suburban and rural ones. They crossed racial divides. And the biggest losses of all were among the lowest-achieving kids. In one in three school districts in the U.S., my colleagues report, students are reading a full grade level lower than they were in 2015.

Education experts told The Times that there’s no single reason for this learning recession. But federal school accountability has relaxed since the No Child Left Behind Act was replaced in 2015. There was also the rise of iPhones, social media and school-issued laptops. And of course the pandemic didn’t help. Student absenteeism spiked and remains high in its wake.

“This is an enormous problem that’s not getting enough attention,” one researcher told my colleagues.

Look up how schools fared in your district.

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