American students turned in grim results on the latest international test of math skills — adding to a large body of research showing significant academic declines since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
The exam, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known as TIMSS, was given last year to fourth and eighth graders from dozens of education systems across the globe. The results, released on Wednesday, found that since 2019, American fourth graders have declined 18 points in math, while eighth graders have declined 27 points.
In fourth grade, those declines were driven by the struggles of students at the bottom end of the achievement spectrum. While fourth graders in the 75th percentile and above did not decline since 2019, those in the 25th percentile and below declined significantly. In 16 other countries, fourth graders performed better in math in 2023 than in 2019.
Among American eighth graders, both high-performing and low-performing students lost ground in math.
Overall, American students’ performance in math was similar to their performance in 1995, when TIMSS was first given — a notable stagnation, given the energetic movement to improve American schools over the last three decades. That movement has pushed a flurry of bipartisan laws intended to enact tougher accountability standards for schools, more school choice for parents and more rigorous academic standards.
While some of those changes might have resulted in previous learning gains, much of the progress appears to have been erased, particularly for low-income students and others who struggle academically, said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the federal Department of Education.
“This is alarming,” Dr. Carr said. “These are sharp, steep declines.”
Experts are debating potential causes. The students who took the TIMSS exam were in the first and fifth grades when the pandemic disrupted education all around the world. Many children in the United States experienced longer-than-average periods of online schooling compared with their international peers.
Still, the pandemic is not the only cause. In the United States, academic declines — and widening gaps between stronger and weaker students — were apparent before the pandemic.
The United States differs from many of the other nations that participate in TIMSS in that it lacks national curriculum standards and has not aligned math instruction to the expectations of the international test.
Despite the disappointing results, the United States performed slightly above average in math compared with all of its international peers.
Matthias von Davier, a professor at Boston College and executive director of the center that conducts the TIMSS exam, said he would consider the overall, long-term results for the United States a story of “glass half full, glass half empty.”
He pointed out that larger, wealthier nations like the United States typically see slower academic achievement growth over time, compared with smaller or developing nations that make big, fast education investments relative to their population size.
The top-performing education systems on TIMSS in math included Singapore; Taipei, Taiwan; South Korea; Hong Kong; and Japan. Several European countries also significantly outperformed the United States, including Britain, Poland and Ireland.
American fourth graders performed similarly to those in Hungary, Portugal and Quebec.
The exam also tested science. In that subject, American students performed similarly in 2023 to how they had in 2019, though fourth graders’ scores had declined since 1995.
American efforts to improve education have tended to focus on basic reading and math skills, downplaying subjects like science and social studies.
And in both the science and math portions of TIMSS, boys performed better than girls, reopening a gender gap that had previously closed.
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