来源：《洛杉矶时报》
原文刊登日期：2021年10月15日
本文适合2023考生
The results from the latest nationwide tests of student proficiency are grim. Downright depressing. For the first time in the 50-year history of these tests, the scores of 13-year-olds fell in both reading and math. Scores for 9-year-olds showed no improvement compared with 2012.
最新的全美学生能力测试结果令人沮丧。非常令人沮丧。在这些测试50年的历史上，13岁孩子的阅读和数学成绩首次下降。与2012年相比，9岁儿童的分数没有提高。
Nor can anyone blame the pandemic for this. The tests were administered in very early 2020, before the pandemic shut down most in-person schooling.
任何人也不能将此归咎于疫情。这些测试是在2020年初进行的，当时新冠大流行还没有导致大多数的面对面授课暂停。
The results come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, well-known for its biennial tests called “the nation’s report card.” But this is different from NAEP tests, it's given to students ages 9 and 13, and less frequently. The Long-Term Trend Assessment looks at progress over stretches of time. Scores were last reported for the 2012 tests.
该测试结果来自于美国教育进步评估机构，该机构以两年一次的“国家成绩单”考试而闻名。但本次测试不同于“国家成绩单”考试，主要针对9岁和13岁的学生，而且频率较低。长期趋势评估着眼于一段时间内的进展。上一次该测试成绩报告还是在2012年。
No single test tells the whole story of what students are learning or achieving. But the long-term results shouldn’t shock anyone; they’re pretty much in keeping with what the biennial NAEP tests have found: Many students are significantly below grade level on the basics. If students had been making even incremental progress over the previous eight years, that should have added up to at least a significant improvement.
没有哪个单一的测试能完整地说明学生在学习什么或取得什么成就。但长期考试结果不应让任何人感到震惊；它们与两年一次的NAEP测试的结果基本一致：许多学生的基础知识明显低于年级水平。即使学生们在过去8年的NAEP测试里取得了渐进式的进步，那么累积起来至少也应该是个显著的进步。
If anything, scores should have been depressed in 2012 because for the previous few years, school budgets had been squeezed to the breaking point by the Great Recession. From that point until the pandemic, more money was available for education.
如果说有什么反常的话，那就是2012年的分数本应该有所下降，因为在之前的几年里，学校预算因大衰退被挤压到了崩溃的边缘。从那时起直到新冠大流行，用于教育的资金越来越多。
Still, many factors could have contributed to the fall-off. The No Child Left Behind Act ended in 2015, and its replacement essentially allowed states to eliminate any real consequences for schools when students were doing poorly. Once schools ended programs and laid off large numbers of teachers during the recession, it could have taken some years to rebuild. The improved economy meant that teachers often could find more lucrative work outside the public education system.
不过，有很多因素可能导致了这种下降。《不让一个孩子掉队法案》于2015年失效，其替代法案实质上允许各州在学生表现不佳时消除对学校的任何实际影响。一旦学校在经济衰退期间结束了课程并解雇大量教师，重建工作可能需要几年时间。经济的改善意味着教师通常可以在公共教育系统之外找到更赚钱的工作。
The nation can’t afford to play guesswork with this. It’s quite possible that President Biden’s proposal for universal preschool will make a real difference down the road. There’s evidence that high-quality preschool helps disadvantaged students significantly. But lack of such preschool isn’t an excuse for the backward slide we’re seeing.
美国不能在这上面瞎猜。拜登总统关于普及学前教育的提议很可能会在未来产生真正的影响。有证据表明，高质量的学前教育能极大地帮助贫困学生。但是缺乏这样的学前教育并不是我们所看到的倒退的借口。
The U.S. Department of Education should be putting its research muscle behind an effort to figure out what happened to the nation’s students over those eight years. There’s still a problem, for example, with schools not using the reading curricula that have been proven to improve literacy. Or perhaps more money needs to go toward reducing the attrition rate among teachers; somewhere between 30% to 50% of them leave within their first five years.
美国教育部应该投入研究力量，弄清楚这八年来美国学生发生了什么。例如，现在仍存在一个问题，学校不使用已经被证明可以提高读写能力的阅读课程。或者可能需要更多的钱来降低教师的流失率；有些地方30%到50%的教师会在头五年内离开。
The test results show that going “back to normal” after the pandemic isn’t going to cut it. Schools need the extra funding the American Rescue Plan is bringing in, but that funding has to be targeted in ways that work.
测试结果显示，疫情过后“恢复正常”并不能解决问题。学校需要美国救援计划带来的额外资金，但这些资金必须以有效的方式使用。