A snapshot of America’s schools: Trends and global comparisons

Education Access & Equity Education Policy Global Education K-12 Education

教育机会与公平教育政策 全球教育 K-12 教育

Forward to basics: A unifying agenda to revitalize America’s schools

回归基础：振兴美国学校的统一议程

A Gallup poll conducted in August 2026 found that only 8% of adults are “completely satisfied” and 24% are “somewhat satisfied” with the quality of K-12 education in the U.S. today.

2026 年 8 月进行的盖洛普民意调查发现，只有 8% 的成年人对当今美国 K-12 教育质量“完全满意”，24% 的成年人“部分满意”。

That combined total of 32% is the lowest level of satisfaction that Gallup has measured in nearly three decades of annual polling on this question.

32% 的总满意度是盖洛普近三十年来针对这一问题进行的年度民意调查中测得的最低满意度。

It represents a precipitous drop since the onset of COVID-19—a drop now evident among both Democrats and Republicans.

自 COVID-19 爆发以来，这一数字急剧下降——现在民主党和共和党的下降趋势都很明显。

Recent poll results from Pew and PDK are similarly bleak.

皮尤研究中心和 PDK 最近的民意调查结果同样黯淡。

Discontent with the nation’s schools is evident in (and, likely, fueled by) prolonged culture-war conflicts over issues related to race, gender, and sexuality.

对国家学校的不满在种族、性别和性相关问题上的长期文化战争冲突中显而易见（而且很可能加剧）。

It’s also evident in the language used by a wide variety of leaders to describe the nation’s schools.

这一点在许多领导人描述国家学校时使用的语言中也很明显。

President Trump has decried America’s education system as “dead last” in performance despite being “the most expensive” system in the world.

特朗普总统谴责美国的教育体系在表现上“垫底”，尽管它是世界上“最昂贵”的体系。

(We’ll scrutinize those claims shortly.) Education reformers and researchers have referred to this era as a “learning recession” or “education depression.” It’s hard to find prominent voices in education—from the political left, center, or right—saying that all is well.

（我们很快就会审查这些说法。）教育改革者和研究人员将这个时代称为“学习衰退”或“教育萧条”。在教育界，无论是左派、中间派还是右派，都很难找到表示一切都很好的重要声音。

To get out of the slump we’re in, we need to understand the nature of that slump.

为了摆脱目前的低迷，我们需要了解低迷的本质。

That is, we need to be sure that our critiques of the nation’s education system are tethered to what the best available data and evidence say about where we stand.

也就是说，我们需要确保我们对国家教育体系的批评与关于我们立场的最佳可用数据和证据有关。

That is the focus of this report.

这是本报告的重点。

It provides a 30,000-foot view of America’s schools, largely through a series of charts.

它主要通过一系列图表提供 30,000 英尺范围内的美国学校视图。

We examine trends in student outcomes—overall and by subgroup—and place those outcomes in the context of other countries’ performance.

我们研究学生成绩的趋势（总体和按小组），并将这些结果与其他国家的表现放在一起。

We also examine indicators of students’ well-being and how U.S. students are spending their time.

我们还研究学生的幸福感以及美国学生如何度过时间的指标。

The result is a troubling—but nuanced—portrait of how America’s students are doing.

结果是一幅令人不安但又微妙的美国学生表现的写照。

For example, in some areas we are performing well relative to peer countries, even if we still have room to improve.

例如，在某些领域，我们相对于同行国家表现良好，尽管我们仍有改进的空间。

In other areas, we are performing poorly by any reasonable measure.

从任何合理的标准来看，我们在其他领域的表现都很差。

The data in this report do not point conclusively to any single cause of our schools’ challenges, nor to any silver-bullet solution.

本报告中的数据并没有最终指出我们学校面临挑战的任何单一原因，也没有指出任何灵丹妙药的解决方案。

They do, however, offer a clearer view of where we stand and the work that lies ahead.

然而，它们确实让我们更清楚地了解我们的立场和未来的工作。

We begin by examining trends in academic performance, for which the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a natural starting point.

我们首先研究学业成绩的趋势，国家教育进步评估 (NAEP) 是一个自然的起点。

Known as “the nation’s report card,” NAEP periodically tests and surveys representative samples of U.S. students.

NAEP 被称为“国家成绩单”，定期对美国学生的代表性样本进行测试和调查。

Its results shape public narratives about how America’s schools are performing and which states are over- or underachieving.

其结果影响了公众对美国学校表现以及哪些州表现优异或成绩不佳的看法。

Recent releases, for example, have prompted consternation about national trends and intrigue about relatively strong performances in states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, and Massachusetts.

例如，最近发布的数据引发了人们对全国趋势的惊愕，以及对密西西比州、路易斯安那州和马萨诸塞州等州相对强劲表现的好奇。

These first results will be familiar to many readers: math and reading trends for grades 4 and 8.

许多读者都会熟悉这些初步结果：4 年级和 8 年级的数学和阅读趋势。

NAEP’s scales are not easy to interpret, but as a benchmark, 8th graders have historically outscored 4th graders by about 40 points.

NAEP 的量表不容易解释，但作为基准，八年级学生的得分历史上比四年级学生高出约 40 分。

Because the grades are four years apart, that gap implies about 10 points of learning in a typical year.

由于成绩相差四年，因此这一差距意味着通常一年内大约有 10 个学习点。

The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford measured this more precisely and estimates that a year of learning equates to 10.4 NAEP points in math 11.2 NAEP points in reading.

斯坦福大学的教育机会项目对此进行了更精确的测量，并估计一年的学习相当于数学 10.4 NAEP 分和阅读 11.2 NAEP 分。

Across grades and subjects, the pattern is broadly similar.

各个年级和科目的模式大致相似。

Average scores rose—in some cases sharply—in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

20 世纪 90 年代末和 2000 年代初，平均分数有所上升（在某些情况下急剧上升）。

They started to plateau around 2013, began to slide shortly thereafter, plummeted during the pandemic, and have since recovered only modestly, if at all.

它们在 2013 年左右开始趋于稳定，此后不久开始下滑，在大流行期间暴跌，此后即使有恢复，也只是小幅恢复。

NAEP is not designed for drawing conclusions about the causes of test score changes over time, as tempting as that may be.

NAEP 的目的并不是为了得出关于考试成绩随时间变化的原因的结论，尽管这可能很诱人。

Still, a few events from this period are worth noting.

尽管如此，这一时期的一些事件仍值得注意。

The first is the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002, along with related school accountability policies that many states adopted in the preceding years.

第一个是 2002 年的《不让一个孩子掉队》(NCLB) 法案，以及许多州在前几年采取的相关学校问责政策。

NCLB is the kind of policy one might expect to raise 4th and 8 th grade NAEP scores.

NCLB 是一种人们可能期望提高四年级和八年级 NAEP 分数的政策。

It pushed states to set content standards for grades 3 through 8 (and 10) and to hold schools accountable for students’ mastery of that material.

它推动各州制定 3 至 8 年级（和 10 年级）的内容标准，并要求学校对学生对该材料的掌握情况负责。

It also created incentives to move students over state-defined “proficiency” thresholds, which may have steered resources toward low-scoring students.

它还制定了激励措施，促使学生超过州规定的“熟练程度”门槛，这可能会将资源引向低分学生。

This does not mean NCLB was good for America’s schools on balance.

总的来说，这并不意味着 NCLB 对美国学校有利。

That question remains fiercely debated .

这个问题仍然存在激烈的争论。

However, the best available evidence indicates that it likely raised test scores, especially near the bottom of the test score distribution.

然而，现有的最佳证据表明，它可能会提高测试分数，尤其是在测试分数分布的底部附近。

The second is the Great Recession, which ran from late 2007 to mid-2009.

第二次是大衰退，从 2007 年底到 2009 年中期。

Child poverty increased over this period.

在此期间，儿童贫困有所增加。

At the same time, school spending declined by about 7%, which may ( or may not ) have contributed to declining test scores and widening achievement gaps.

与此同时，学校支出下降了约 7%，这可能（也可能不是）导致考试成绩下降和成绩差距扩大。

The recession also serves to underscore the point that schools do not exist in a vacuum but are subject to broader societal forces.

经济衰退还强调了这样一个观点：学校并非存在于真空中，而是受到更广泛的社会力量的影响。

The third is the COVID-19 pandemic.

第三个是COVID-19大流行。

Most schools quickly moved to online learning in response to the pandemic, and many stayed there for an extended period.

为了应对疫情，大多数学校迅速转向在线学习，许多学校在那里呆了很长时间。

This shift, along with other harms brought on by COVID-19, undermined student learning and mental health, especially among marginalized students.

这种转变以及 COVID-19 带来的其他危害损害了学生的学习和心理健康，尤其是边缘化学生。

Of course, the last two decades brought many other changes, too.

当然，过去二十年还带来了许多其他变化。

This includes the rise of cellphones and social media, which we return to later.

这包括手机和社交媒体的兴起，我们稍后再讨论。

In a recent paper , James Wyckoff of the University of Virginia argues that the field still lacks a clear account of why NAEP scores have fallen.

在最近的一篇论文中，弗吉尼亚大学的 James Wyckoff 认为，该领域仍然缺乏对 NAEP 分数下降原因的明确解释。

He cautions against overemphasizing the role of COVID-19, noting that the downward trend from 2013 to 2019 would have predicted roughly half of the declines since 2020.

他警告不要过分强调 COVID-19 的作用，并指出 2013 年至 2019 年的下降趋势预计将占 2020 年以来下降的一半左右。

1

1

Average NAEP scores tell only part of the story.

平均 NAEP 分数只能说明部分情况。

Stubbornly large gaps between historically advantaged and marginalized groups, and growing gaps between our highest and lowest scorers, are also important characteristics of this period.

历史上的优势群体和边缘群体之间的巨大差距，以及得分最高者和最低者之间的差距不断扩大，也是这一时期的重要特征。

Figure 2 shows NAEP scores from 1996 to 2024, disaggregated by socioeconomic status.

图 2 显示了 1996 年至 2024 年的 NAEP 分数，按社会经济地位分类。

Here, too, we show 4th and 8 th grade scores in math and reading.

在这里，我们也显示了四年级和八年级的数学和阅读成绩。

Gaps between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students remained large and mostly steady over this period.

在此期间，经济优势学生和贫困学生之间的差距仍然很大且基本稳定。

However, caveats apply.

但是，需要注意事项。

First, NAEP’s measure of economic disadvantage has changed over time .

首先，NAEP 对经济劣势的衡量标准随着时间的推移而发生了变化。

2 Second, NAEP offers only one view of the complicated picture of income-based achievement gaps (albeit a useful one).

2 其次，NAEP 仅提供了基于收入的成就差距的复杂情况的一种观点（尽管是一种有用的观点）。

Researchers using different income and test score measures have sometimes reached very different conclusions about these gaps .

研究人员使用不同的收入和考试成绩衡量标准，有时对这些差距得出截然不同的结论。

Next, we look at NAEP scores disaggregated by race and ethnicity.

接下来，我们看看按种族和民族分类的 NAEP 分数。

These scores appear in Figure 3.

这些分数如图 3 所示。