According to a report issued by the National Center for Education Statistics last week, only one-quarter of Maine fourth-graders are proficient in reading (26%) and one-third of them (33%) are proficient in math. Our pupils, like most across the nation, have not recovered from the crippling “learning loss” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response, the Maine Department of Education asked us to be “careful” to avoid “sweeping conclusions” and gestured in the direction of its own findings, which paint a better picture.

Charts presenting the findings of the nation’s report card, as the biennial analysis is informally known, are hard to look at. Not only are our kids low down, nationally, but their proficiency has suffered in the last two years at a greater rate than in most other states. Even if it’s a challenge being felt all over America, even if it is, as the Maine DoE maintains, “a snapshot in time,” it’s a distressing one.

An appropriate response would call more attention to the immense challenges faced by our children and our schools, not less. Schools need to hear it, families need to hear it. The national report should light a fire under us, if one isn’t burning already. Finding fault with it does nobody any good.