Former education secretary calls for 'Marshall Plan' to restore US education post COVID: 'National emergency'

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Bill Bennett on falling reading and math scores: 'Devastation is the right word'

Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett explains why youth math and reading scores have reached their lowest level since 1990.

Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett on Thursday called for a 21st century "Marshall Plan" to address the staggering decline in reading and math proficiency among elementary-age children after a new report documented the largest average score decline in decades among U.S. students.

The Department of Education on Thursday published a report on the nation's plummeting test scores, which showed dramatic losses across the board for students in the U.S. caused by extended school closures and remote learning. Average scores for 9-year-old students in 2022 declined 5 points in reading, according to the DOE, and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020.

The losses represent "the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first-ever score decline in mathematics," the department said in a statement. 

STUDENT'S MATH, READING SCORES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC SAW STEEPEST DECLINE IN DECADES: EDUCATION

A child, wearing a schoolbag is accompanied to his elementary school on September 2, 2014 in Marseille at the start of the new school year.  (ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images)

Bennett, who had been outspoken in support of keeping schools open during the pandemic for fear of setting back our nation's youth, lamented the report's findings on Thursday, calling for the disastrous blow to education in the U.S. to be treated as "a national emergency."

"Devastation is the right word," Bennett told "America Reports." "We had been making slow but steady progress in math and reading over the last 20 years, we lost it all during COVID. We lost it all."

Reading scores saw their largest decrease in 30 years, while math scores had their first decrease in the history of the testing regimen, according to the report. Bennett said he worries that illiterate children could develop drug addictions and other complications later on in life. 

"This is really a disaster," Bennett said, warning that illiterate children have a much higher rate of developing drug addictions and confronting other complications later on in life.

Abigail Previlon, 13, takes part in remote distance learning on a Chromebook with the help of her mother Carlene at home in Stamford, Connecticut.  ((Photo by John Moore/Getty Images))

"So the kids can’t read, they go out in the street, maybe they can find these colored-coated fentanyl pills…or drop out of school because reading and math predict whether you are going to stay in school, whether you're going to have success," he said. "We have really got to get going here and that means, I think, things for the midterms, and a shake-up in American education generally."

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The test results were observed across previously established percentiles, but Bennett said it's no surprise that lower-performing students were hit the hardest.

"Isn’t this always the case?" he said, predicting that "they are going to have a heck of a time" catching up scholastically. 

Bennett proposed a Marshall Plan to restore education in the U.S., referencing the 1948’s Marshall Plan that gave European countries financial help after World War II.

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"I’m calling for a Marshall Plan for the schools, kindergarten through [grade] three, reading and math," he said. "Nothing else."

Fox News' Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.