Summary:
- The article discusses the significant decline in science scores among 4th and 8th-grade students in the United States, as revealed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data.
- The scores have dropped across all racial and socioeconomic groups, with the largest declines observed in 4th-grade science, where scores have fallen by 5 points since 2009.
- The article suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted in-person learning, may have contributed to the decline in science scores, as hands-on experiments and inquiry-based learning were more challenging to implement in remote or hybrid learning environments.