and the ACT — which offers a rival college admissions exam — attributed falling scores on its test to the pandemic, too.

Florida students scored significantly worse on national reading tests taken last year than in 2022, mirroring a continuing national decline since the COVID-19 pandemic, data released Wednesday morning ...

Florida, long a leader in elementary reading, continued to do better than most states at fourth-grade reading, even as its scores dropped from 2022 and from the pre-pandemic high in 2017.