National testing data released this morning reveals severe damage inflicted on student math and reading performance, reaffirming COVID-19’s ongoing educational toll. Even as some states have shown evidence of academic recovery this year, federal officials cautioned that learning lost to the pandemic will not be easily restored.Eighth-grade math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the “Nation’s Report Card,” fell by a jarring eight points since the test was last administered in 2019, while fourth-grade scores dropped by five points; both are the largest math declines ever recorded on the test. In reading, both fourth- and eighth-grade scores fell by three points, leaving them statistically unchanged since 1992, when NAEP was first rolled out.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools showed some of the country’s sharpest declines in math and reading scores on the test known as the “nation’s report card.”Results from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, illustrate the pandemic’s devastating effect on learning in Tennessee’s largest school district, where most students are Black and come from low-income families who were hit hardest by the pandemic, and where waves of COVID infections led to prolonged stretches of remote learning.

When former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in July that her former Cabinet department “should not exist,” it made some waves.The school choice advocate and Republican mega-donor has kept a relatively low profile since leaving Washington last January, mostly attending to policy developments in her home state of Michigan. Her call to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, unveiled at a meeting of the right-wing activist group Moms for Liberty, represented a return to the national spotlight — not just for DeVos, but for an idea that has hung around Republican politics for decades.

Step Up, a mentorship nonprofit founded in 1998, announced they are expanding their operations to Nashville after Music City native, Reese Witherspoon, made a multi-year investment.