Those adults who thought that the pandemic’s disruption to in-school learning would not produce serious negative consequences were kidding themselves.

Just how serious those negative consequences have turned out to be should serve as a wake-up call to parents, educators and communities alike.

Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress testing given during the last school year. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly four in 10 eighth graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in their average test scores, with some treading water at best. The assessment in question tested hundreds of thousands of fourth- and eighth-graders across the country this year. The exam, which last had been administered in 2019 — pre-pandemic — is seen as the first nationally representative study of the pandemic’s impact on learning.

Against that backdrop individual school districts shouldn’t have expected their individual results on state tests to show remarkable student achievement gains. On Monday, we got a look at how proficient Warren County students are according to state PASSE tests. The answer, in short, is not well, particularly when it comes to math.

As Eric Mineweaser, Warren County School District curriculum, instruction and assessment director, told the Times Observer, “We know our scores are down … lower than expected,” Mineweaser said. “Our scores have taken a hit for the past few years.”

Mineweaser was referencing the district’s struggles both during the pandemic and since Pennsylvania adopted the Common Core State Standards. While it’s encouraging that individual student learning is growing when compared to past year results, the district’s proficiency rates in math are particularly troubling. Some educators have said the steeper drop in math proficiency across the country compared to English and other subjects is due in part to the way math instruction has changed over the years. The thinking is parents have an easier time helping their child read at home but struggle to help with math because the way it is taught has changed so much over the years.

It’s something to think about as schools, including ours, deal with the decrease in math proficiency. Schools often beg for parental involvement in a child’s education — but parental involvement is little help when new ways of teaching math might as well be written in French for those who aren’t educators. That’s worth thinking about as school districts consider curriculum changes.