美國孩童閱讀力跌至新低

In the latest release of federal test scores, educators had hoped to see widespread recovery from the learning loss incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

在最新發布的聯邦考試成績，教育工作者本來希望能看見新冠肺炎疫情期間造成的學習失落全面反彈。

Instead, the results, from last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, tell a grim tale, especially in reading: The slide in achievement has only continued.

相反地，「全國教育進展評估」(NAEP)去年的評估結果講述一個令人憂心的故事，特別是閱讀：成績持續下滑。

The percentage of eighth graders who have “below basic” reading skills according to NAEP was the largest it has been in the exam’s three-decade history — 33%. The percentage of fourth graders at “below basic” was the largest in 20 years, at 40%.

NAEP指出，閱讀能力「低於基本水平」的八年級生比率是該考試舉行30年來最高—有33%。「低於基本水平」的四年級生比率是20年來最高，達40%。

There was progress in math, but not enough to offset the losses of the pandemic.

數學有進步，但不足以彌補疫情造成的損失。

Recent reading declines have cut across lines of race and class. And while students at the top end of the academic distribution are performing similarly to students prepandemic, the drops remain pronounced for struggling students, despite a robust, bipartisan movement in recent years to improve foundational literacy skills.

近期閱讀能力下滑影響遍及不同種族和階級。儘管學業成績頂尖學生表現和疫情前相似，但對於學習困難的學生，即使近年實施強力的跨黨派運動，改善基礎讀寫能力，成績下滑依舊明顯。

“Our lowest performing students are reading at historically low levels,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which gives the NAEP exam. “We need to stay focused in order to right this ship.”

負責NAEP考試機構「全國教育統計中心」主任委員佩姬．卡爾表示：「我們成績最差學生的閱讀水平處於史上最低水平。我們需要專注扭轉這個局面。」

Carr did point to Louisiana fourth graders as a rare bright spot. Though their overall reading achievement was in line with the national average, a broad swath of students had matched or exceeded prepandemic achievement levels.

卡爾確實指出，路易斯安那州四年級生是罕見的一個亮點。雖然他們的總體閱讀成績和全國平均相當，但大量學生的閱讀成績已達到或超越疫情前成績水平。

Louisiana has focused on adopting the science of reading, a set of strategies to align early literacy teaching with cognitive science research. The resulting instruction typically includes a strong focus on structured phonics and vocabulary building.

路易斯安那州一直專注於採用閱讀科學，這是一套將早期讀寫能力教學和認知科學研究結合的策略。由此產生的教學通常包含明顯專注於結構化自然發音及詞彙建構。

That approach has become widespread over the past five years, but does not seem to have led to national learning gains — at least not yet.

這種方法已在過去五年變得普遍，但似乎並未帶來全國學習進展—至少目前還沒有。

Experts have no clear explanation for the dismal reading results. While school closures and other stresses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic deepened learning loss, reading scores began declining several years before the virus emerged.

專家對於十分糟糕的閱讀成績結果尚無明確解釋。儘管學校關閉和與疫情有關的其他壓力加劇學習失落，但在新冠病毒出現的多年前，閱讀成績就開始下滑。

In math, higher-achieving fourth graders — those performing at the 75th percentile and above — are doing as well as similar fourth graders were in 2019. But fourth graders performing below average in math had not made up the lost ground.

數學方面，表現較好的四年級生—即成績達到第75百分位數以上者—表現和2019年時成績類似的四年級生一樣好。但數學表現低於平均的四年級生尚未補回差距。

In eighth grade math, only higher-achieving students showed improvements, but they remained below prepandemic levels.

八年級生的數學方面，只有前段班的學生表現有所改善，但仍低於疫情前水平。

大環境巨變 美民主黨苦尋出路

The Democratic Party is having an identity crisis about identity politics.

民主黨在身分認同政治面臨身分認同危機。

Just weeks into the Trump administration, Democrats are grappling with how to stand up for diversity and defend marginalized groups that have come under assault from the White House, without allowing their party to be defined or marginalized by those fights.

川普政府上任僅數周，民主黨人正努力思考如何維護多元化，以及保護已受到白宮攻擊的邊緣群體，同時不讓那些鬥爭定義和邊緣化他們的政黨。

President Donald Trump has pushed to make DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — a dirty word, racing to unravel diversity programs across the federal government at remarkable speed. At the same time, he has made a series of aggressive moves against transgender rights, including calling gender care for trans youths “chemical and surgical mutilation,” ordering transgender women in federal prisons to be transferred to men’s prisons and banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.

總統川普極力將DEI，即多元、平等和包容，變成不受歡迎的字眼，並以驚人的速度破壞聯邦政府的多元化專案。同時，他已針對跨性別權利採取了一系列激進舉措，包括稱針對跨性別年輕人的性別照護是「化學和外科手術殘害」，及下令將聯邦監獄中的跨性別女性轉移到男子監獄，並禁止跨性別運動員參加女子體育。

But Democrats are struggling to marshal an effective response. They are debating, publicly and privately, when to push back, how to push back and what, exactly, to push back on.

民主黨人正努力設想有效的應對方法。他們公開和私下辯論何時反擊、如何反擊，及實際上要反擊什麼。

Some are saying that almost no instances of discrimination — especially rank racism — should go unanswered. Others are pressing the party to be more selective and engage only in cultural battles that are winnable. And still others are urging the party to avoid identity politics altogether — even when Republicans seem to be opening themselves up to a fierce counterattack.

有些人表示，幾乎所有歧視事件都不應沒有回應，特別是嚴重種族歧視。其他人敦促民主黨更加嚴格篩選參與事件，只參與能獲勝的文化戰爭。還有人敦促民主黨完全避談身分認同政治—即使是在共和黨人似乎正投身準備面對猛烈反擊。

“The party is flailing,” said Rashad Robinson, who recently stepped aside after years of leading Color of Change, a progressive civil rights group.

羅賓遜說：「民主黨正搖搖欲墜。」他領導進步派民權團體「變革之色」數年，於近期讓賢。

For years, Democrats believed they held the moral and political high ground in defending the value of a diverse and multicultural America. Trump’s exploitation of racial grievances, they assumed, would inevitably lead him to a demographic dead end, by capping his appeal to the growing nonwhite population. But the 2024 election upended those assumptions, as Trump not only won the White House but also improved his standing among nonwhite voters.

多年來，民主黨人認為他們在保衛多元價值和美國多元文化方面，占據道德和政治制高點。他們想當然地認為，川普利用種族怨懟，會損害他在日漸增長的非白人群體的票房，必將把他帶往人口結構所造成的困境。但2024年大選顛覆了那些假設，川普不僅贏得白宮大位，他在非白人選民間的得票也增加。

Now Democrats are in a period of reassessment.

現在民主黨人正處於重新評估時期。

Robinson urged his party not to “give up on identifying and eliminating discrimination, any more than we can give up on getting lead out of water.” But he argued that Democrats needed to recalibrate their arguments about diversity to focus on demonstrating the practical benefits of having people of color in the room for key decisions.

羅賓遜敦促他的政黨不要「放棄鑑別和消除歧視，就像我們不能放棄去除水中的鉛一樣」。但他主張，民主黨人需重新調整關於多樣性的論點，專注展現有色人種參與關鍵決策的實際好處。

“If we make the case simply through a moral lens, we will lose,” Robinson said. “Right now, we have to make the business case.”

羅賓遜表示：「如果我們僅透過道德角度提出論點，我們會輸。現在，我們必須提出實務層面的論點。」