Students across the United States have had “historic” drops in math and reading test scores since the start of the pandemic. Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly four in 10 eighth graders failed to understand basic math ideas. Not a single state saw any improvement. Those are the findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) also known as the “nation’s report card.” Hundreds of thousands of fourth and eighth graders across the U.S. took the test earlier this year. It was the first time the test had been administered since 2019. The result is seen as the first nationally representative study of the pandemic’s effect on learning.