“The slide in average NAEP scores masks a pernicious inequality: scores have declined far more in America’s middle- and low-income communities than in its wealthy ones. The good news is that it could have been worse: the federal investment in public schools during the pandemic paid off, limiting academic losses in high-poverty districts. The pandemic highlighted inequalities in our education system; it didn’t create them. And so we don’t need just `pandemic recovery’ now, but long-term structural reform. A real `recovery’ requires that we make sure students in middle and low-income communities have all the resources they need to thrive in school.”