In May, economics professor Doug Staiger published a report on academic performance in the U.S. in which he, Harvard University professors Daniel Dewey and Thomas Kane and Stanford University professors Erin Fahle and Sean Reardon, analyzed data collected between 2022 and 2025 on math and English testing scores nationwide to gain a more complete picture of educational trends. The Dartmouth sat down with Staiger to discuss his research and its broader implications.
How does income distribution among the districts in New Hampshire manifest in your data when looking at test scores?
DS: The pattern that we saw in the report is that higher-income districts have higher test scores than lower-income districts. Those districts were also much better able to weather the pandemic, whereas the lower-income districts really fell a lot during the pandemic. The higher-income districts had resources both through the schools and through the households that were able to keep the kids on track. However, with the low-income districts, that wasn’t true at all.
Since, say, 2013, the higher-income districts have kind of maintained their test score levels, but there have been stronger declines in the lower income districts, and we see this in New Hampshire districts. The higher test score students — the students at the 90th percentile of test scores — those test scores have stayed pretty level since 2013 or so. The 10th percentile has fallen more than a grade level, and that decline began before the pandemic. They declined more during the pandemic, and they’re continuing to decline. So there’s a real disparity there.
Are there any Upper Valley districts that stood out when you ran the numbers?
DS: Hanover, not surprisingly, has high test scores. They’re about three grade levels above the national average in their scores, which is not atypical for a high-income, high-education school district like Hanover. What’s really striking — and this follows the national pattern — is that Hanover did not see the decline since 2013. Their [students’] scores are above where they were in 2013. They didn’t decline at all during the pandemic. And they haven’t been declining recently. A second thing that was really interesting is that their reading scores from before the pandemic — 2019 — to after showed almost a great level of improvement. And they’re one of the few districts that I've seen that has made that amount of improvement since 2019 reading scores.
Lebanon is also a district that is now better than they were in 2013. For them, it really began before the pandemic. They were maintaining their math and reading while the rest of the state was declining. They took a bit of a hit during the pandemic, and lost maybe half a grade level in their test scores, but they’ve come back, and they’re really doing something right. Something’s been improving and changing there.
Here’s the one contrast. In our report, we highlight that a lot of the lower-income districts took a big hit during the pandemic. But since the pandemic, the lower-income districts got a lot of federal money through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund. The lower-income schools, like in Claremont, got by far the most money. And so that really helped them recover. So the poorest, lowest-income districts are actually back to where they were before the pandemic. With Claremont, however, that is not true. Claremont got about a typical amount for one of the high-poverty districts. They got about $6,000 per student in federal pandemic aid. However, their scores, actually, were worse than other similar poverty schools. They did worse than the state average. They’ve been declining since 2013, took a big decline in the pandemic, and they’ve continued to decline.
In a Q&A with New Hampshire Public Radio, you said that during the pandemic, high-poverty districts got pandemic aid and recovered, wealthy districts had their own resources and it’s the middle that’s stuck. What would help a middle-income N.H. district close that gap?
DS: I would encourage the state, to the extent they have resources, to think about targeting some resources on the middle-income districts. Some of these middle-income districts include Salem, Dover, Kearsarge, Goffstown, Portsmouth and Lebanon. The other thing they could do is just focus on places that are still trailing behind and think about ways to support them. Through our test score data, they can see who those are. For example, Lebanon is doing great, and they’re a middle income district for our state. Lebanon got about $2,000 to $3,000 per student in federal aid, where Claremont got $6,000. The state could focus on the places that have not recovered and that have had big losses. This focus could be both through money and also potentially in just support. One thing that we thought about and recommended was pairing districts that have been struggling with some of those comparable districts that have been successful.
What are the broader implications of this report to academic trends at large in the U.S.?
DS: People have underappreciated what the “learning recession” where, since 2013, there has been a decline in education levels. New Hampshire is now a full grade level down in math and a full grade level down in reading. Some people thought it was a temporary pandemic effect, but it’s staying around. The other nice point is that I think our report was clear that we cannot have the mindset that the scores are down for everyone and they will bounce back on their own. There are districts that have really improved over this whole decade, and since the pandemic, because of the federal money supplied. In high poverty schools, that money really did help them recover, but that money didn't go to a lot of schools and some of those middle-income schools really still are behind.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Isabela Pierry '29 is a reporter from New York and is majoring in comparative literature and government.
