Clarification: This story has been updated to include that 13% of high school students did not graduate on time in 2023.
A new national study reveals that student well-being has seen some progress since before the pandemic, but the most concerning declines are in children’s performance at school.
The report, 2025 Kids Count Data Book, released earlier this month by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, looks at 16 indicators across four domains—economic well-being, education, health, and family and community—to determine student well-being in the country. Since 2019, there have been some bright spots, along with some persistent gaps and declines.
“[There are] some real challenges, particularly in education, and I think some of that is the result of pandemic-era learning loss that has continued or gotten worse,” said Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs at the Baltimore-based foundation, which researches youth well-being.
The areas that showed progress were children’s economic well-being and family and community, while worsening indicators were in the education and health categories. Reading and math scores declined, more students are chronically absent, and fewer students are enrolled in preschool than before the pandemic.
The report calculates its scores for the 16 indicators based on federal government agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The majority of the data is from 2023, except for the 2024 data on math and reading proficiencies.
While schools have tried different tactics to catch students up, like increasing tutoring and offering summer school, educators still largely report learning loss at “moderate” or “severe” levels, according to a December 2024 EdWeek Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of 990 teachers, principals, and district leaders.
More attention has been paid to student well-being in recent years as experts believe it directly affects how and whether a student learns.
“Students’ basic needs [need to be] met if they’re going to be able to show up academically as their best selves,” said Carl Felton III, a policy analyst on the P-12 team at EdTrust, an education policy and advocacy nonprofit focused on improving equity in education for students, based in Washington.
Deepening concerns for education
According to the report, the education category saw setbacks in nearly all indicators. This includes the percentage of children ages 3 or 4 who are not in preschool (54%), the percentage of 4th graders who are not proficient in reading (70%), and the percentage of 8th graders who are not proficient in math (73%).
The only indicator that improved in the education category was the number of high school students graduating on time (the percentage of high school students not graduating on time in 2023 was 13%).
“The nation is not proficient in basic skills,” said Boissiere. While most 8th graders struggle with math, she added, “we know that a lot of the growth in jobs is in STEM-related fields, and that’s a 9% increase since 2019.”
The states that ranked the best in the education category were Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut, while those that ranked last were Oklahoma, Alaska, and New Mexico.
Still, Boissiere said all states have both areas of strength, and room for improvement. “Even in the top-ranked states, there are still indicators where they have lots of room for opportunity,” she said. “I would lift up a state like West Virginia, which is one of the bottom-ranked states but has the highest graduation rate in the country—so the data is varied.”
Family, community, and economic improvements
Despite the setbacks in education, there were some indicators that improved. For example, the percentage of children in poverty (16%), the percentage of children whose parents lack secure employment (25%), and the percentage of children without health insurance (5%).
Within the family and community domain, which encompasses categories like the percentage of children living in high-poverty areas (8%) and the percentage of teen births (13%), the states that were ranked the highest were New Hampshire, Utah, and Vermont, and the states that ranked last were Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico.
New Hampshire was able to improve its family and community indicators by lowering the number—by 1 to 2 percentage points—of both children in single-parent families and teen parents between 2019 and 2023.
Students of color and those from low-income families need more support
One concerning trend that came as a surprise for Boissiere was the number of teenagers, ages 16 to 19, who are not working and not in school. This number increased by 1 percentage point to 7% since the pandemic, which is about 1.2 million teens.
A deeper look shows that Black, Latino, and Native American teenagers are overrepresented in the group of youth who are not in school and not working. Nine percent of Black teens fall in this category, as do 8% of Latino teenagers, and 10% of Native American youth.
Felton said the report also reveals the deep problems students of color, in particular, can face at home.
“There are some serious challenges with students whose parents lack secure employment, students who are in low-income households,” he said. “When a student does not have a stable well-being at home and they don’t have consistent meals, that impacts your ability to show up as your best self.”
One reason for the declines could be the pandemic, which schools still haven’t been able to fully recover from. Students of color and those from low-income backgrounds were affected by the pandemic in greater ways, said Felton.
For example, these students might have depended on schools as a source for food, and with their closure during the pandemic, students lost access to stable meals. “Many of the schoolhouses were the hub of providing resources and access, and so when that gap filler is lost, then our students and families are going to suffer,” he said.
As a result, Felton said it’s important for schools to create strategic partnerships with community-based resource agencies that can help address some of the challenges students of color and from low-income backgrounds face.
“It’s been through strategic partnerships with organizations that specialize in meeting needs [of] health and wellness, transportation, mentoring, food insecurity, workforce development for parents who struggle to keep a stable job,” said Felton. “These are the strategic partnerships that schools and districts need to develop if we are going to ensure that our students have what they need to be successful and show up daily.”
