American Math Scores Plunge

Math test scores among American 13-year-olds fell by the largest margin ever recorded, according to test data released on June 21 by the National Center for Education Statistics (nces). Between 2020 and 2023, math scores dropped nine points as 13-year-olds suffered from school closures and other educational disruptions caused by covid-19 lockdowns. This was the fastest plunge since the nces began keeping records in 1973. Overall, math scores hit their lowest level since 1990, while reading scores were lowest since 2004.

Falling behind: Even before the covid-19 pandemic, an international exam given to teenagers ranked the United States 31st in math literacy out of 79 countries. And covid-19 lockdowns have probably hurt students in America more severely than students in most other nations. Officials in 48 U.S. states, as well as Washington, D.C., ordered or recommended school closures during the pandemic, while European nations made it a mission to keep schools open. And since covid-19 rarely affects children, this is another example of the cure being worse than the disease.

Transformational weapon: The U.S. government’s reaction to the pandemic crashed the U.S. economy, caused America’s gross domestic product to fall by the biggest percentage since the Great Depression, pushed 22 million Americans into unemployment, and increased the national debt by nearly $10 trillion. It caused anxiety, obesity, alcoholism, crime, drug overdoses and suicide. It also gave radical leftists a means of stealing the 2020 presidential election with fraudulent mail-in ballots, and the means of keeping an entire generation of students ignorant.

2 Kings 14:26-27 say that end-time Israel (America, Britain and the Jewish nation in the Middle East) would suffer a time of bitter affliction. Few things have affected these nations as bitterly as their governments’ response to the coronavirus.

Learn more: Read “The Lost Lockdown Generation.”