Students around the world suffered huge learning setbacks during the pandemic, study finds

A new study finds that students around the world suffered historic setbacks in reading during the pandemic and even deeper losses in math, with test score decreases so wide that the United States climbed in global rankings simply by falling behind less sharply. The state of global education was given a bleak appraisal in the Program for International Student Assessment, the first study to examine academic progress in dozens of countries during the pandemic. Released Tuesday, it finds that average math scores fell by the equivalent of three-quarters of a year’s worth of learning. Reading scores fell by the equivalent of half a year.