Tag: Report

  • Announcing Our New Student Basic Needs Survey Report (The Hope Center, Temple University)

    Announcing Our New Student Basic Needs Survey Report (The Hope Center, Temple University)

    Our long-awaited report shares findings from 91
    institutions across 16 states that participated in Hope Impact
    Partnerships (HIP) and fielded The Hope Center Student Basic Needs
    Survey between Spring 2023 and Summer 2024    . 

     
     
    Read the Report

    Help Us Spread the Word 

     

     

     

     

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  • Report finds racial disparities in STEMM degree persistence

    Report finds racial disparities in STEMM degree persistence

    A new report from the Common App found major racial disparities in persistence rates for students who enter college pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, mathematics or medicine.

    Just over half of all college applicants express interest in a STEMM field before entering college—except for Asian American students, 72 percent of whom are interested in STEMM. But while more than half of white and Asian students pursuing STEMM obtain a degree in their chosen field within six years, only one-third of first-generation and Latino students who pursue STEMM, and 28 percent of Black or African American students, persist to earn a degree.

    The disparities go beyond race. While 54 percent of continuing-generation STEMM students earn a degree in their chosen field, only 34 percent of first-gen students do so. And 51 percent of STEMM-interested students from above the median household income earn a degree in their field, compared to 38 percent of students from below median income levels.

    “Our research finds many more talented STEMM aspirants from underrepresented backgrounds applying for college than completing it,” the report concludes.

    The study also found that more female STEMM students switch their degree paths (18 percent) than male students (14 percent), though they complete STEMM degrees at similar rates.

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  • Report card: Accord recommendations 12 months on

    Report card: Accord recommendations 12 months on

    Education Minister Jason Clare handed down the final report in February 2024. Picture: Martin Ollman



    By: Erin Morley

    in Policy & Reform, Politics, Top Stories


    February 24, 2025

    The 408-page Universities Accord document has shaped the past year of university reform discussions. The document includes 47 recommendations that are expected to take up to 25 years to implement.

    Please login below to view content or subscribe now.

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  • The legion of journalists who report unbiased news

    The legion of journalists who report unbiased news

    Are you frustrated because politics is bitterly polarized? Have you almost given up on finding news that is fair, accurate, dispassionate and digestible?

    If so, I have a tip for you: Take a look at some of the major international news agencies. It may change how you consume news while making you better informed.

    Also called wire services, news agencies like the Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) have thousands of multimedia journalists — and clients — spread out around the world. With roots in the 19th century, they have impartiality and a commitment to accuracy in their DNA.

    No news organization can be perfectly impartial. But the better wire services offer an antidote to the slanted and unreliable offerings that often pose as “news” on the internet but can represent little more than one-sided, sensationalized accounts that stoke social and political discord.

    Check out this chart: There’s a reason the AP, Reuters and AFP are considered among the most reliable and balanced Western news sources. It has a lot to do with their history and purpose.

    Fast and factual

    The AP, Reuters and AFP were founded in the 19th century to serve a cross-section of newspapers that could ill afford to have journalists around the world at a time when the appetite for international news was on the rise.

    To succeed, the agencies sought to play it straight and to deliver the news quickly and accurately. Their stock-and-trade was unvarnished, accurate, fast coverage that could win space in any newspaper, regardless of its owners’ or readers’ political leanings.

    “To achieve such wide acceptability, the agencies avoid overt partiality,” Jonathan Fenby wrote in a 1986 book on international news agencies. “They avoid making judgments and steer clear of doubt and ambiguity. Though their founders did not use the word, objectivity is the philosophical basis for their enterprises — or failing that, widely acceptable neutrality.”

    By the 1980s, the four biggest news agencies accounted for the vast majority of foreign news printed in the world’s newspapers.

    A great deal has since changed in the news ecosystem, much of it due to the invention of the internet. But most wire services continue to strive to offer comprehensive, impartial and accurate news reports, complemented nowadays by photographs, video and graphics.

    Keeping a cool head in hot spots

    If you’re home watching the news and there is a video report of an event in a far-away country, chances are it was produced by a news agency. Similarly, reports in newspapers, on the radio or even on the internet often come from news agencies, which typically have many more journalists on the ground than other news organizations, especially in hot spots.

    “The first word of natural disasters in out-of-the-way places invariably comes from agencies,” said News Decoder correspondent Barry Moody, who worked for decades at Reuters and ran the agency’s news coverage during the second Iraq war at the beginning of this century.

    “During the Iraq war, we had an army of staff in Middle Eastern capitals, embedded with American and British troops and as ‘unilaterals’ roaming the front. I can remember watching as we filed snaps revealing the speed of the American advance into Iraq and seeing the tickers on TV stations and the market screens lighting up at every new alert.”

    News agencies have been playing a similar role more recently in the conflict in Gaza. Although the outlets’ international correspondents have been barred from entering Gaza, Palestinian journalists have risked their lives to deliver timely accounts to the wire services from inside the enclave.

    With journalists and clients around the world, the big international news agencies look at events through a global lens. 

    Balanced news in a biased world

    Many of the thousands of correspondents who report for newswires are in war zones or disputed territories. To protect their staff and reputations, the agencies need to be sensitive to conflicting viewpoints, to cite reputable, credible sources and to avoid taking sides. That explains why, in a world full of shrill, partisan bickering, their reports can seem dispassionate, neutral and tolerant.

    Such balance is not always easy.

    Randall Mikkelsen, another News Decoder correspondent, remembers being a White House reporter for Reuters after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Bucking intense pressure from the U.S. administration and public, the news agency refused to call the attackers “terrorists,” instead opting for “militants” or “designated by the State Department as ‘terrorists.’”

    “Our stories were read around the world,” Mikkelsen said. “In some places, people the United States called terrorists were considered by the readers of our work as ‘freedom fighters.’”

    The internet has all but ended two of the biggest advantages that news agencies held during the analog era — speed and the ability to break news to huge numbers of people around the world.

    Increased competition for fast news

    The low cost of entry for competitors into the news ecosystem has undermined the agencies’ traditional, business-to-business model, which was based on the sale of news stories to mainstream media organizations, themselves under financial stress.

    So, the wire services have launched news portals for the public, giving consumers around the world direct access to agency reports. It’s been a challenge for the agencies to make money off of their consumer business, and services like Reuters and Bloomberg continue to pocket the lion’s share of their revenue from well-heeled clients in the financial markets even as they continue to sell content to news organizations.

    If you peruse the agencies’ websites, you’ll find a vast array of multimedia reports from points around the world. Their global footprint remains a competitive advantage.

    Still, as hard as the international agencies try to be balanced and fair, bias can at times creep in. Their journalists are not spread evenly around the world; many more tend to be in Western nations, whose businesses, advertisers and subscribers provide most of the big agencies’ revenues.

    So while a disaster that kills hundreds in a developing country in the Global South may merit coverage, it can be dwarfed by the attention the same agency will pay to an accident or event in a rich nation. As they say, follow the money.

    Still, as News Decoder correspondent Helen Womack put it: “International news agencies are on the ground in all sorts of places where other media cannot be, and they help to give us the bigger picture.”

    In some countries, local news agencies are controlled by the government or focus almost exclusively on that nation’s interests. They do not have the footprint of the big, international agencies.

    Said another News Decoder correspondent, Maggie Fox: “News agency-style coverage is just what’s called for in this age of mistrust and distrust of news — calm, dispassionate, just-the-facts reporting.”

     

    Three questions to consider: 

    1. What is a “newswire”?
    2. Why must newswires report news without bias?
    3. If you were a news reporter why might it be difficult for you to report without bias? 

     

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  • More college students report history of suicidal behaviors

    More college students report history of suicidal behaviors

    Colleges and universities can support students with previous history of suicidal ideation or self-harm with long-term counseling or mental health support.

    PeopleImages/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Over the past two decades, suicide rates in the U.S. have increased 37 percent, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. Fifteen percent of all deaths by suicide are among individuals ages 10 to 24 years old, making it the second leading cause of death for this age group.

    This heightened risk has pushed colleges and universities to invest in preventative measures to address the complex issues that impact student well-being.

    A January report from Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) finds that students with a history of suicidal or self-injurious behaviors report lower levels of distress after engaging with counseling center services, but they remain at higher levels of distress over all compared to their peers.

    Methodology

    The report includes data from the 2023–24 academic year, beginning July 2023 and closing June 2024. Data was collected from 213 college and university counseling centers, including 173,536 unique students seeking care, 4,954 clinicians and over 1.2 million appointments. The data is not representative of the general student population, only those accessing mental health services.

    By the numbers: The number of students reporting previous suicidal or self-injurious behavior (S/SIB) histories jumped four percentage points from 2010–11 to 2023–24, according to CCMH data.

    “While counseling centers have historically treated a considerable segment of students with heightened suicide risk, ongoing questions remain about the complexity of co-occurring problems experienced, the scope of services they utilize, and whether gaps in care exist,” according to the report.

    Compared to their peers without a history of S/SIB, these learners had higher levels of self-reported distress, particularly in symptoms of generalized anxiety, general distress and depression. They were also more likely to report a history of trauma or past hospitalization.

    Students had a higher likelihood of continuing to demonstrate self-injurious thoughts or behaviors, compared to other students, but the overall rates remained low, with only 3.3 percent of students with past S/SIB reporting it during college counseling.

    They were 14.3 times more likely to engage in self-injury and 11.6 times more likely to attempt suicide during treatment, and more than five times more likely to be admitted or referred to a hospital for a mental health concern. This, again, constituted a small number of students (around one in 180) but researchers noted the disproportionate likelihood of these critical case events.

    Ultimately, students with suicidal or self-injurious behavior history saw similar benefits from accessing services compared to their peers, with data showing less generalized distress or suicidal ideation among all learners between their first and final assessments. However, they still had greater levels of distress, even if slightly lower than initial intake, showing a need for additional resources, according to researchers.

    “The data show that students with a history of suicidal or self-injurious behaviors could benefit from access to longer-term and comprehensive care, including psychological treatment, psychiatric services and case management at counseling centers, as well as adjunctive support that contributes to an overall sense of well-being, such as access to disability services and financial aid programs,” said Brett Scofield, executive director for the CCMH, in a Jan. 28 press release.

    Future considerations: Researchers made note that while prior history of suicidal behaviors or self-harm are some of the risk factors for suicide, they are not the only ones, and counseling centers should note other behaviors that could point to suicidal ideation, such as substance use or social isolation.

    Additionally, some centers had higher rates of students at risk for suicide, ranging from 20 to 50 percent of clients, so examining local data to understand the need and application of data is critical, researchers wrote.

    The data also showed a gap in capacity to facilitate longer-term care, such as case management or psychiatric services available, which can place an additional burden on clinicians or require outsourcing for support, diluting overall quality of care at the center. “Therefore, it is imperative that colleges and universities invest in under-resourced counseling centers to ease the burden on counseling center staff and optimize treatment for students with heightened suicide risk,” according to the report.

    Investing in on-site psychological treatment or psychiatric care and finding creative solutions to work alongside outside partners can help deliver more holistic care.

    Other trends: In addition to exploring how college counseling centers can address suicidality in young people, CCMH researchers built on past data to illustrate some of the growing concerns for on-campus mental health service providers.

    • Rates of prior counseling and psychotropic medication usage grew year over year and are at the highest level since data was first collected in 2012. A 2023 TimelyCare survey found six in 10 college students had accessed mental health services prior to entering college, and CCMH data echoed this trend, with 63 percent of students entering with prior counseling history.
    • The number of clients reporting a history of trauma remains elevated, up eight percentage points compared to 2012, though down slightly year over year, at 45.5 percent, compared to last year’s 46.8 percent.
    • Anxiety is the most common presenting concern, with 64.4 percent of clients having anxiety, as assessed by clinicians.
    • In-person counseling services have rebounded since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with 63.7 percent of clients receiving exclusively in-person counseling and 13.5 percent receiving only video care.

    We bet your colleague would like this article, too. Send them this link to subscribe to our weekday newsletter on Student Success.

    If you or someone you know are in crisis or considering suicide and need help, call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 9-8-8, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

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  • The Death of DEI (Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report)

    The Death of DEI (Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report)

    Black
    people must be discerning about racist attacks on DEI programs while
    also acknowledging that “diversity” can be a con that damages Black
    politics, just as it was meant to do.

    The sight of Al Sharpton
    holding a protest at a New York City Costco store is a sure sign that
    very problematic politics are being practiced. In this instance,
    Sharpton’s theatrics were inspired by the corporations which
    discontinued their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. DEI
    has been in conservative crosshairs with conservative think tanks and activists
    filing numerous lawsuits claiming that the programs are discriminatory.
    The same corporations who joined in the performative DEI programs when
    it was convenient have now run for cover. Costco is one of the few who
    didn’t and so got the seal of approval from Reverend Al.

    Corporate DEI programs came into vogue in 2020 in
    the wake of nationwide protest after the police killing of George Floyd.
    The fact that both white police and corporate CEOs were “taking a knee”
    allegedly in sympathy with protesters should have been a sign that
    anything emanating from these gestures was a joke at best and a betrayal
    at worst.

    According to a 2023 report ,
    only 4% of chief diversity officer positions in U.S. corporations were
    held by Black people, who also had the lowest average salaries. DEI
    mania was a public relations effort intended to stem Black protest while
    doing nothing to improve the material conditions of Black workers, even
    for those who were involved in this project. The usual hierarchies
    remained in place, with white men and women getting the top jobs and the
    most money. Also Black people were not the only group subject to DEI
    policies, as other “people of color,” women, and the LGBTQ+ community
    were also competing for a piece of the questionable action.

    In addition to the right wing legal attack, Donald Trump is so obsessed
    with ending DEI in the federal government that all employees connected
    with such programs were placed on administrative leave after one of his
    many executive orders were issued. Federal workers were instructed to report
    on their knowledge of any DEI activity that hadn’t been ferreted out.
    The Trump administration DEI ban means that agencies are being told not
    to even allow for any affinity events or celebrations. Although that
    idea might not be bad if it prevented the FBI from claiming to honor Martin Luther KIng , a man they surveilled, harassed, and encouraged to commit suicide. Not to be deterred in the Trumpian witch hunt, the Air Force
    briefly deleted information about the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Army
    Service Pilots (WASPs) from a basic training curriculum, only to return
    the information after public outrage emerged when military heroes,
    usually revered, were getting the usual rough treatment meted out to
    Black people.

    Yet it is difficult to ignore the Trump anti-DEI
    frenzy. At its core it is an effort to disappear Black people from
    public life altogether under the guise of protecting a white meritocracy
    which never existed. However, it would be a mistake to embrace a failed
    effort which succeeds only at liberal virtue signalling and creating a
    more diverse group of managers to help in running the ruling class machinery.

    DEI was a repackaging of affirmative action, a term
    which fell into disfavor after years of complaint from aggrieved white
    people and which was undone by Supreme Court decisions. Like affirmative
    action, it was a calculated response to serious political action,
    action which threatened to upend a system in dire need of disrupting and
    bringing the justice and the democracy that are so often bragged about
    yet that remain so elusive.

    As always, Black people are caught between the
    proverbial rock and hard place, not wanting to ignore Trumpian antics
    while also being wary of any connection with the likes of Al Sharpton.
    The confusion about what to do is rampant and mirrors the general sense
    of confusion about Black political activity.

    When the Target retail outlet ended its DEI
    programs there were calls for boycotts. Of course others pointed out
    that Target sold products created by Black owned companies
    which would be harmed by the absence of Black shoppers. All of the
    proposals are well meaning, meant to mitigate harm and to help Black
    people in their endeavors. Yet they all miss the point.

    The reality of an oppressive system renders such
    concerns moot. Racial capitalism may give out a crumb here and another
    there, and allow a few Black businesses some space on store shelves. If
    nothing else it knows how to preserve itself and to co-opt at opportune
    moments. Yet the fundamentals do not change. DEI is of little use. But
    by ending it, Trump evokes great fear in a group of people whose
    situation is so tenuous that it still clings to the useless and
    discredited Democratic Party to protect itself from Trump and his ilk.

    It is absolutely necessary to leave the false
    comfort of denial that gives the impression Trump is offering some new
    danger to Black people. The last thing Black people need is for the CIA
    or the State Department to hide their dirty deeds behind King birthday
    celebrations or Black History Month events. Black History Month should
    be a time when plans for liberation are hatched, making it unattractive
    to enemy government agencies to even consider using for propaganda
    purposes.

    The death of DEI should not be mourned. Its
    existence is an affront to Black peoples’ history and valiant struggles.
    DEI is just one of many means to keep us compliant and to give
    legitimacy to what isn’t legitimate. If Al Sharpton is marching anywhere
    the best course of action is to stay very far away.

    Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter , Bluesky , and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at [email protected]



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  • Report from Eloy Detention Center (Rebel Diaz)

    Report from Eloy Detention Center (Rebel Diaz)

    A report about mass incarceration in Eloy, Arizona, from Rebel Diaz, the Chilean American political hip hop duo of Rodrigo Venegas (RodStarz) and Gonzalo Venegas (G1). For 18 years, Rebel Diaz has used their music to educate, agitate, and organize working class folks across the globe.  Much of their music is here. 

    Un informe sobre el encarcelamiento masivo en Eloy, Arizona, de Rebel Diaz, el dúo de hip hop político chileno-estadounidense formado por Rodrigo Venegas (RodStarz) y Gonzalo Venegas (G1). Durante 18 años, Rebel Diaz ha utilizado su música para educar, agitar y organizar a la clase trabajadora en todo el mundo.

    Related links:

    Rebel Diaz TV on YouTube

    Rebel Díaz’ Rodrigo Starz: Empowering Communities with New FREE FAMILY PORTRAITS Album (Latino Rebels)

    Rebel Diaz: A musical legacy of activism

    Department of Justice stops federally-funded legal aid, affecting detained Arizona immigrants (AZPM)

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  • HELU’s Wall-to-Wall and Coast-to-Coast Report – January 2025

    HELU’s Wall-to-Wall and Coast-to-Coast Report – January 2025

    This winter and spring, HELU activists are leading workshops in six states to develop platforms, advance coalitions, and share concrete, tested strategies for winning political change. I hope your union will join these opportunities so we can connect with and fortify each other. At a moment when we could go quiet and dark, we must choose to build up and out…. Read more.
     

    From the HELU Blog:

    Why should healthcare unions join HELU?

    Profiteers have taken over our hospitals and put patients’ lives on the line. They are forcing the closure of hospitals that do not make a profit. Insurance companies tell us how and when to treat our patients. The corporatization of both academia and healthcare are ruining the quality of education and health respectively for many of our students and patients. Just as faculty and staff say, “Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions,” healthcare workers say, “Our working conditions are our patients living or dying conditions.”… Read more.

    United Steelworkers Local 1088 is Newest HELU Member

    HELU keeps growing thanks to locals like 1088 who agree with our theory of change and also carry it on their workplaces to build a higher education system that works for all. Our strength and coalitional capacity increases thanks to the engagement of members within their locals carrying our strategic vision and program…. Read more.
     

    “Alone our debts are a burden, but together they give us power.”

    Debt permeates nearly all aspects of today’s neoliberal higher education landscape. Our students accumulate mountains of debt while studying, and faculty labor under unpayable debt burdens which are particularly burdensome for contingent faculty, who often work multiple jobs so they can make student loan payments. The universities we teach and learn in are drowning in billions of dollars of debt owed to Wall Street…. Read more.
     

    The NCSCBHE 2024 Directory: A Boon to Unions, Researchers and Educators

    The new 2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions in Higher Education by William A Herbert, Jacob Apkarian, and Joseph van der Naald is an excellent update of the last 2012 comprehensive directory issued by the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining for Higher Education and the Professions… Read more.

    Defend the University: Lessons from Brazil & Argentina on Resisting Fascist Attacks on Higher Education

    Wednesday, January 29 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT

    Universities in the United States are under conservative and neoliberal attack. The Trump administration has promised to intensify the assault on higher education. In this Jubilee School discussion, leading Argentine and Brazilian scholar-activists that have fought to defend their public universities from the Milei and Bolsonaro regimes will share lessons on how to defend higher education against fascist attacks. Register here.
     

    Coalition for Action in Higher Education: National Day of Action Organizing Call

    Friday, January 31 at 2pm ET/1pm CT/Noon MT/11am PT

    On April 17, we will hold a National Day of Action for Higher Education to assert our collective power to organize for higher education and protect the common good. Before April, we’ll be hosting a series of national organizing calls to plan the Day of Action events. Our first call is Friday, January 31, at 2pm ET/1pm CT/Noon MT/11am PT. Register here.
     

    Winning Healthcare in Minnesota and New Jersey for Contingent Faculty: Lessons from Oregon and California

    Wednesday, February 12 at 6pm ET/5pm CT/4pm MT/3pm PT

    On April 17, we will hold a National Day of Action for Higher Education to assert our collective power to organize for higher education and protect the common good. Before April, we’ll be hosting a series of national organizing calls to plan the Day of Action events. Our first call is Friday, January 31, at 2 pm ET/1pm CT/Noon MT/11am PT. Register here.
     

    Coalition for Action in Higher Education: Antisemitism, False Charges of Antisemitism, and Building Resistance Workshop

    Thursday, February 20 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT

    Part of building mutual solidarities, resistance, and narratives to fight false accusations of antisemitism is through widespread political education. PARCEO will share its approach and issues it addresses in its curriculum on antisemitism from a framework of collective liberation, as well as challenges that arise. Register here.
     

    Want to support our work? Make a contribution.

    We invite you to support HELU’s work by making a direct financial contribution. While HELU’s main source of income is solidarity pledges from member organizations, these funds from individuals help us to grow capacity as we work to align the higher ed labor movement.
    From Helena Worthen and Evan Bowman, Co-Chairs of the HELU Media & Communications Committee.

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  • A dismal report card in math and reading

    A dismal report card in math and reading

    The kids are not bouncing back. 

    The results of a major national test released Wednesday showed that in 2024, reading and math skills of fourth and eighth grade students were still significantly below those of students in 2019, the last administration of the test before the pandemic. In reading, students slid below the devastatingly low achievement levels of 2022, which many educators had hoped would be a nadir. 

    The test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), is often called the nation’s report card. Administered by the federal government, it tracks student performance in fourth and eighth grades and serves as a national yardstick of achievement. Scores for the nation’s lowest-performing students were worse in both reading and math than those of students two years ago. The only bright spot was progress by higher-achieving children in math. 

    The NAEP report offers no explanation for why students are faltering, and the results were especially disappointing after the federal government gave schools $190 billion to aid in pandemic recovery. 

    “These 2024 results clearly show that students are not where they need to be or where we want them to be,” said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, in a briefing with journalists. 

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    More than 450,000 fourth and eighth graders, selected to be representative of the U.S. population, took the biennial reading and math tests between January and March of 2024. 

    Depressed student achievement was pervasive across the country, regardless of state policies or instructional mandates. Student performance in every state remained below what it was in 2019 on at least one of the four reading or math tests. In addition to state and national results, the NAEP report also lists the academic performance for 26 large cities that volunteer for extra testing.

    An ever-widening gap

    The results also highlighted the sharp divergence between higher- and lower- achieving students. The modest progress in fourth grade math was entirely driven by high-achieving students. And the deterioration in both fourth and eighth grade reading was driven by declines among low-achieving students. 

    “Certainly the most striking thing in the results is the increase in inequality,” said Martin West, a professor of education at Harvard University and vice chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the NAEP test. “That’s a big deal. It’s something that we hadn’t paid a lot of attention to traditionally.”

    The starkest example of growing inequality is in eighth grade math, where the achievement gap grew to the largest in the history of the test.

    Source: NAEP 2024

    The chart above shows that the math scores of all eighth graders fell between 2019 and 2022. Afterward, high-achieving students in the top 10 percent and 25 percent of the nation (labeled as the 90th and 75th percentiles above) began to improve, recovering about a quarter of the setbacks for high achievers during the pandemic. That’s still far behind high-performing eighth graders in 2019, but at least it’s a positive trend. 

    The more disturbing result is the continuing deterioration of scores by low-performing students in the bottom 10 percent and 25 percent. The huge pandemic learning losses for students in the bottom 10 percent grew 70 percent larger between 2022 and 2024. Learning losses for students in the bottom 25 percent grew 25 percent larger.

    “The rich get richer and the poor are getting shafted,” said Scott Marion, who serves on the NAEP’s governing board and is the executive director of the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, a nonprofit consultancy. “It’s almost criminal.”

    More than two-thirds of students in the bottom 25 percent are economically disadvantaged. A quarter of these low performers are white and another quarter are Black. More than 40 percent are Hispanic. A third of these students have a disability and a quarter are classified as English learners. 

    By contrast, fewer than a quarter of the students in the top 25 percent are economically disadvantaged. They are disproportionately white (61 percent) and Asian American (14 percent). Only 5 percent are Black and 15 percent are Hispanic. Three percent or fewer of students at the top have a disability or are classified as English learners.  

    Related: Six puzzling questions from the disastrous [2022] NAEP results

    Although average math scores among all eighth grade students were unchanged between 2022 and 2024, that average masks the improvements at the top and the deterioration at the bottom. They offset each other. 

    The NAEP test does not track individual students. The eighth graders who took the exam in 2024 were a different group of students than the eighth graders who took the exam in 2022 and who are now older. Individual students have certainly learned new skills since 2019. When NAEP scores drop, it’s not that students have regressed and cannot do things they used to be able to do. It means that they’re learning less each year. Kids today aren’t able to read or solve math problems as well as kids their same age in the past.

    Students who were in eighth grade in early 2024, when this exam was administered, were in fourth grade when the pandemic first shuttered schools in March 2020. Their fifth grade year, when students should have learned how to add fractions and round decimals, was profoundly disrupted. School days began returning to normal during their sixth and seventh grade years. 

    Harvard’s West explained that it was incorrect to assume that children could bounce back academically. That would require students to learn more in a year than they historically have, even during the best of times.

    “There’s nothing in the science of learning and development that would lead us to expect students to learn at a faster rate after they’ve experienced disruption and setbacks,” West said. “Absent a massive effort society-wide to address the challenge, and I just haven’t seen an effort on the scale that I think would be needed, we shouldn’t expect more positive results.”

    Learning loss is like a retirement savings shortfall

    Learning isn’t like physical exercise, West said. When our conditioning deteriorates after an injury, the first workouts might be a grind but we can get back to our pre-injury fitness level relatively quickly. 

    “The better metaphor is saving for retirement,” said West. “If you miss a deposit into your account because of a short-term emergency, you have to find a way to make up that shortfall, and you have to make it up with interest.”

    What we may be seeing now are the enduring consequences of gaps in basic skills. As the gaps accumulate, it becomes harder and harder for students to keep up with grade-level content. 

    Another factor weighing down student achievement is rampant absenteeism. In survey questions that accompany the test, students reported attending school slightly more often than they had in 2022, but still far below their 2019 attendance rates. Eleven percent of eighth graders said that they had missed five or more school days in the past month, down from 16 percent in 2022, but still far more than the 7 percent of students who missed that much school in 2019. 

    “We also see that lower-performing readers aren’t coming to school,” said NCES Commissioner Carr. “There’s a strong relationship between absenteeism and performance in these data that we’re looking at today.”

    Eighth graders by the number of days they said they were absent from school in the previous month 

    Source: NAEP 2024

    Fourth grade math results were more hopeful. Top-performing children fully recovered back to 2019 achievement levels and can do math about as well as their previous peers. However, lower-performing children in the bottom 10 percent and 25 percent did not rebound at all. Their scores were unchanged between 2022 and 2024. These students were in kindergarten when the pandemic first hit in 2020 and missed basic instruction in counting and arithmetic.

    Reading scores showed a similar divergence between high- and low- achievers.

    Source: NAEP 2024

    This chart above shows that the highest-performing eighth graders failed to catch up to what high-achieving eighth graders used to be able to do on reading comprehension tests. But it’s not a giant difference. What’s startling is the steep decline in reading scores for low-achieving students. The pandemic drops have now doubled in size. Reading comprehension is much, much worse for many middle schoolers. 

    It’s difficult to say how much of this deterioration is pandemic related. Reading comprehension scores for middle schoolers had been declining for a decade since 2013. Separate surveys show that students are reading less for pleasure, and many educators speculate that cellphone use has replaced reading time.

    Related: Why reading comprehension is deteriorating

    The biggest surprise was fourth grade reading. Over the past decade, a majority of states have passed new “science of reading” laws or implemented policies that emphasize phonics in classrooms. There have been reports of improved reading performance in Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee and elsewhere. But scores for most fourth graders, from the highest to the lowest achievers, have deteriorated since 2022. 

    One possibility, said Harvard’s West, is that it’s “premature” to see the benefits of improved instruction, which could take years.  Another possibility, according to assessment expert Marion, is that being able to read words is important, but it’s not enough to do well on the NAEP, which is a test of comprehension. More elementary school students may be better at decoding words, but they have to make sense of those words to do well on the NAEP. 

    Carr cited the example of Louisiana as proof that it is possible to turn things around. The state exceeded its 2019 achievement levels in fourth grade reading. “They did focus heavily on the science of reading but they didn’t start yesterday,” said Carr. “I wouldn’t say that hope is lost.”

    More students fall below the lowest “basic” level 

    The results show that many more children lack even the most basic skills. In math, 24 percent of fourth graders and 39 percent of eighth graders cannot reach the lowest of three achievement levels, called “basic.” (The others are “proficient” and “advanced.”) These are fourth graders who cannot locate whole numbers on a number line or eighth graders who cannot understand scientific notation. 

    The share of students reading below basic was the highest it’s ever been for eighth graders, and the highest in 20 years for fourth graders. Forty percent of fourth graders cannot put events from a story into sequential order, and one third of eighth graders cannot determine the meaning of a word in the context of a reading passage. 

    “To me, this is the most pressing challenge facing American education,” said West.

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595 or [email protected].

    This story about the 2024 NAEP test was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for  Hechinger newsletters.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Report: Community Colleges Are Leaving Millions in Medicaid Funding on the Table Each Year

    Report: Community Colleges Are Leaving Millions in Medicaid Funding on the Table Each Year

    According to a newly released report, community colleges miss out on at least $115 million in available Medicaid funding each year. Only 3% of community colleges bill Medicaid for services, despite 84% of community colleges likely being eligible for Medicaid reimbursement. 

    The report, “Increasing Student Support and Success by Boosting Medicaid Engagement,” draws on data collected from a review of over 1,000 community colleges.

    “There is a missed opportunity right now where community colleges could be getting in a significant source of recurring funds that they are not currently claiming,” said Ryan Stewart, report co-lead and Founder and CEO of Mile 2 Consulting, LLC. “I want to raise awareness of that and try to build a culture where more community colleges take advantage.” 

    There are growing mental health concerns among college students and an increase in demand for all student health services among community college students. Unfortunately, the demand for student health services often exceeds a community college’s resources.

    Eligible health services include but are not limited to, psychological services, counseling, nursing services, physical therapy, Medicaid outreach and case management. According to Stewart, the call for community colleges to consider Medicaid reimbursements is more critical now than ever.

    “We’ve seen this growing need for particularly mental health resources at at the college level, and we’ve also seen that many colleges relied on COVID relief funding,” said Stewart. “Those funds are now expired, so you have a lot of schools right now who are looking for ways to sustainably replace those funds, and Medicaid could be a really important source.”

    Stewart previously served as the Secretary of Education for New Mexico and has inspired his thinking about how K-12 schools accessed student resources through Medicaid.

    “In that role we had done a lot of work with our Human Services department because they were really passionate about making sure K-12 schools knew about Medicaid and were doing all they could to claim all available funds,” he said. “Since I’ve left that role, I’ve done a lot of work to try to look at this from a national perspective.”

    Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab, report co-lead and senior fellow at Education Northwest, brought a higher education perspective to the project.

    “For more than a decade I’ve documented the clear need for community colleges to offer basic needs and related health services,” said Goldrick-Rab, who is also a columnist for Diverse. “A growing number of administrators are trying to offer that help to students but struggle to afford the costs. My hope is that this report spurs action and increases funding available to support student success at community colleges.” 

    Stewart and Goldrick-Rab projected the amount of money that community colleges could potentially generate through Medicaid reimbursement claims, taking into account the health services currently offered at the school, an estimate of the number of students receiving each category of services, an estimate of the number of Medicaid-eligible students enrolled at the school and an estimate of the average reimbursement per student.

    According to the report, community colleges in the United States could collectively generate approximately $115 million in recurring reimbursement revenue from Medicaid.

    “Healthcare access is a critical component of student success and if students are experiencing either mental health or physical health crises and don’t have access to care, that can be a barrier to successful post-secondary completion,” said Stewart. “But that has to be funded. A lot of these services are not cheap, and for colleges who are looking for every resource to try to sustain their whole portfolio of programming, finding sustainable resources like [Medicaid] where money is already appropriate could really make a big difference if you’re looking to either sustain or expand health service programming.”

    When asked why they choose not to claim Medicaid reimbursements for eligible services, community college administrators listed several reasons, including the lack of capacity to manage the Medicaid billing process.

    “​​The primary barrier colleges face when accessing this funding is a lack of information about its existence and what’s required to obtain it. Ironically, that’s the same challenge students face when accessing other funding like financial aid and SNAP,” said Goldrick-Rab. “Of course, some colleges will still struggle to have sufficient staff to offer services in the first place, [because] you have to offer them in order to be reimbursed and deal with the billing.

    Goldrick-Rab said she and Stewart hope to offer technical assistance to teach colleges how to manage this process adequately.

    “I believe addresssing the informational barriers alone will close a lot of the gap. Imagine if even 50% of the colleges offering eligible health services got Medicaid reimbursement, compared to just 3%? That would be a major win,” she added.

    The report provides recommendations for community colleges, state Medicaid agencies, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It urges community colleges to create partnerships with their state Medicaid agencies so that they can be informed about their eligibility and request the support needed to optimize health services and revenue potential.

    “Everyone is talking about the student mental health crisis, but until now, I haven’t seen many offering funding options,” said Goldrick-Rab. “We have to ensure community colleges have the resources needed to do this critical work.”

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