Learning Losses Recorded Across Developed Nations in Wake of Pandemic

Teenagers in developed nations including the United States have seen a decline in their reading and math test scores, which experts attribute in part to learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data published on Dec. 5. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examines what students know in mathematics, reading, and science, and what they can do with the knowledge they have, via annual tests. PISA typically conducts the testing every three years but the planned 2021 test was postponed because of the pandemic. In 2022, as nations were still dealing with the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, nearly 700,000 students from 81 OECD member and partner economies—representing 29 million across the world—took the PISA test, which was administered among 15-year-olds....