After schools shut down for two years for Covid and did "virtual" school, the learning loss is starting to show up on standardized tests.

From Axios:

The national average composite score for graduating seniors in 2022 was 19.8 out of 36, the lowest average score since 1991 and down from 20.3 for graduating seniors in 2021.

That's 30 years of progress completely erased.

In case you aren't familiar with the ACT, 19.8 is not stellar by any measure.

To get into 95 of the top 100 colleges and universities you need AT LEAST a 25 score to even get in.

• In addition, 42% of students failed to meet any of the ACT's subject benchmarks in English, reading, science and math, which are the minimum test scores required for students to have a reasonable chance of success in typical first-year college courses, per ACT.

Yeah, 42% are scoring badly in EVERY category. They aren't ready to take any of the most basic college courses.

This is a failed education system.

The decline in scores is the latest indicator of the pandemic's detrimental effects on the nation's students — and underscores the extent to which graduating high school students are ill-prepared for college.

• "The magnitude of the declines this year is particularly alarming, as we see rapidly growing numbers of seniors leaving high school without meeting the college-readiness benchmark in any of the subjects we measure," ACT CEO Janet Godwin said in a statement.

Some cities shut down schools for 2 years, despite the warning from lots of people (most of whom were censored) that Covid wasn't a threat to kids but isolation and shutdowns would have long-lasting effects.

Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg. The lockdowns only made an emerging trend in education worse:

ACT test scores have been on the decline for at least five years, Godwin said, adding that it is "a worrisome trend that began long before the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has persisted."

• "These declines are not simply a byproduct of the pandemic. They are further evidence of longtime systemic failures that were exacerbated by the pandemic."

The whole government school system is broken.

We have record low test scores, but at least our kids' teachers are giving them record-high gender confusion, hatred of America, division over skin color, and wokeness!