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(NEW YORK) — High school students, especially 12th graders, are reading and learning math and science at historic lows, according to a new report from the National Assessment of Education Progress.

The new report, known as the Nation’s Report Card, was released Monday by the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, and the Department of Education. It is the first nation’s report card to be released since the coronavirus pandemic.

The report shows almost half of high school seniors are now testing below basic levels in math and reading, and approximately 35% are at or above a proficient reading level, while 32% of them had a below “basic” reading proficiency.

By comparison, 37% of high school seniors were reading at or above proficiency in the 2019 report card, and 40% were at or above reading proficiency in 1992.

In math, the report shows only about 22% of 12th graders performing at or above proficiency standards.

The report card also looked at eighth graders and their science ability and found 31% of them were performing at proficient or above proficient standards.

Another key issue the report highlighted was absenteeism, with the number of absent students in schools rising among all age groups since the pandemic.

According to the report card, in 2024, approximately 31% of 12th graders specifically reported missing at least three or more days of school in the previous month, an increase from 2019, when the rate was 26%.

Educators and policymakers say it is critical for parents to stay engaged and regularly check in with students and their teachers about assignments and any absences.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the report’s findings “devastating” in a statement Tuesday.

“Today’s NAEP results confirm a devastating trend: American students are testing at historic lows across all of K-12,” McMahon said, adding, “Despite spending billions annually on numerous K-12 programs, the achievement gap is widening, and more high school seniors are performing below the basic benchmark in math and reading than ever before.”

The Department of Education has notably been cutting staff and services under McMahon’s leadership, including the researchers who produced the new nation’s report card. President Donald Trump has also tasked McMahon with dismantling her department altogether and handing control over education agendas to the states.

“Success isn’t about how much money we spend, but who controls the money and where that money is invested,” she said Tuesday.

Marty West, a professor of education at Harvard University, told ABC News the results are concerning because only a portion of American students are getting the education they deserve.

“What troubles me most about the patterns that we’re seeing is that the declines are largest for our lowest-performing students — those in the bottom quarter of the distribution. Meanwhile, high-scoring students – those at the 90th percentile are doing just about as well as ever,” West said. “So, this really highlights the extent with which American schools right now are really only preparing some students for success at the post-secondary level.”

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(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — A Tennessee man pleaded guilty Tuesday to plotting to using a weapon of mass destruction in a neo-Nazi-inspired plot to destroy an energy facility near Nashville, the Justice Department announced.

Skyler Philippi, 24, was arrested last November over his plans to attack Nashville’s power grid with a drone armed with explosives. According to the DOJ, charging documents showed Philippi conducted extensive research into how such an attack could serve to “shock the system,” as he relayed to one FBI confidential source who became aware of his plotting.

The FBI first began investigating Philippi last June after a confidential source who was in touch with him reported to the FBI his desire to commit a mass shooting at a YMCA near Columbia, Tennessee, according to prosecutors. Philippi also repeatedly espoused his adherence to white supremacist and accelerationist ideologies which promote the idea that a destabilizing terrorist attack on something like the nation’s energy sectors could serve to incite unrest that leads to civil war, prosecutors said.

“I definitely want to hit Nashville, like one hundred percent, I want to get Nashville,” Philippi said in one meeting recorded by undercover agents, according to charging documents. “I also know Louisville pretty g—— well, since I lived there. I spent about five months scouting out every single place [power station] and even coming up with a game plan to hit it as fast as I could. I had whole maps made, printed out on paper, to actually do that.”

In September of last year, Philippi and undercover FBI employees drove to an electrical substation he had allegedly researched previously. While in transit, Philippi ordered what he believed would be the equivalent of C-4 explosives from the informants, according to charging documents.

During their recon mission to the substation, agents recorded Philippi stating, “Holy s—. This will go up like a f—— Fourth of July firework,” charging documents said.

In a meeting days before his arrest, Philippi participated in a Nordic ritual and told the undercover agents “this is where the New Age begins,” and that it was “time to do something big” that would be remembered “in the annals of history,” according to the charging documents.

Philippi then drove with the FBI employees to the site of his operation and, as the undercover agents moved to their assigned positions as lookouts, he powered up the drone with what he believed was the explosive device attached to it, charging documents said. Philippi was then taken into custody.

The charging documents included one image that shows Philippi conducting a test of the drone, as well as another photo of him with the FBI undercover agents showing off what he believed were explosive devices.

Philippi faces a maximum penalty of life in prison in connection with his guilty plea. Sentencing is currently set for Jan. 8, 2026.

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(NEW YORK) — New York City police are searching for the suspect who killed a 77-year-old man and a 78-year-old woman by stabbing them and setting them on fire in their Queens home, likely while searching for property to steal, sources said.

Neighbors reported a man knocking on doors on Monday, asking to charge a cell phone, with at least one neighbor turning the man away before he approached the victim’s house, the sources told ABC News.

Detectives believe they have identified the suspect, who has an extensive criminal record and was released from prison in 2023, sources said.

Surveillance video showed the suspect knocking on the victims’ back door and the 77-year-old victim opening it and letting him in around 10:15 a.m., according to sources.

Detectives believe the suspect spent five hours in the victims’ house, according to sources, likely searching for property to steal before setting it ablaze.

Surveillance video also showed the suspect leaving the home at 3:08 p.m., shortly before the house went up in flames, sources said.

Neighbors called the victim’s son, a New York City Fire Department paramedic who was off duty at the time of the fire, who rushed home to discover his parents dead, sources said.

The fire department responded to the location and put the fire out, the New York Police Department said in a statement. EMS pronounced both victims deceased at the scene.

The woman was found lying on the first floor and accelerant appeared to have been poured on her body, starting the fire, sources said.

The man was found in the basement where he was tied with bungee cords to a column supporting the house, sources said. He was also set on fire but that fire appeared to have extinguished itself, sources said.

The suspect is described as a male, with a dark complexion, approximately 30 to 40 years of age, medium build, and was last seen wearing a black hat, a black jacket, blue jeans, and black sneakers, according to the NYPD.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X @NYPDTips.

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(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — More than four years after the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex in Surfside, Florida, federal investigators are expected to announce their preliminary findings on Tuesday regarding the cause of the tragedy.

“It is more likely that the collapse initiated in the pool deck than the tower,” a slide deck prepared ahead of today’s National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee meeting states.

Champlain Towers South was an oceanfront complex just north of the Miami Beach city line. The collapse of the structure killed 98 people in the middle of the night in June 2021.

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology have preliminarily concluded that the pool deck started to collapse more than seven minutes before the building fell to the ground, confirming what was suggested in earlier media reports.

The exact cause of the collapse has been under investigation in the years since the incident, but investigators have long focused part of their attention on the pool deck.

“At the time of the failure, the pool deck’s slab-column connections had critically low margins of safety,” the presentation notes. “The bulk of the critically low margins of safety was caused by design understrength and misplaced slab reinforcement.”

Officials noted in their presentation that issues with the pool deck existed from the time Champlain Towers South was built more than four decades ago.

“The structure had low resistance to progressive collapse, allowing the collapse of the pool deck to spread into and throughout the middle and east parts of the tower,” the slides added.

The federal probe into the collapse has been delayed several times. The final investigative report was previously expected to be completed in 2025, but that goal has since been pushed back another year.

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(NEW YORK) — The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack on the World Trade Center is still killing New York City firefighters 24 years later.

On Tuesday, the New York City Fire Department will remember 39 members who died in the past year of illnesses related to their work during the rescue and recovery efforts at what was then known as The Pile.

Their names will be added to the FDNY World Trade Center Memorial Wall during a Tuesday afternoon ceremony at the department’s Brooklyn headquarters. The inscription on the wall says, “Dedicated to the memory of those who bravely served this department protecting life and property in the City of New York in the rescue and recovery effort at Manhattan Box 5-5-8087 World Trade Center.”

The FDNY has lost more than 400 members to World Trade Center illnesses, surpassing the 343 firefighters killed on 9/11 itself.

Overall, 2,753 people were killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Thursday will mark 24 years since the terror attacks. The annual commemoration ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan will begin at 8:40 a.m. Thursday.

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(FORT PIERCE, Fla.) — One hundred and twenty potential jurors are in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida, Tuesday for the second day of jury selection in the criminal trial of Ryan Routh, the man accused of trying to kill Donald Trump on his golf course last year.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — who oversaw and dismissed one of Trump’s criminal cases — hopes to have a jury finalized by Wednesday afternoon, with the trial expected to take approximately three weeks.

The jury selection process so far has gone slowly, with Routh — who is representing himself despite not being a lawyer and having limited legal experience — requesting to ask potential jurors questions that Cannon deemed “politically charged” and irrelevant.

Among the questions Judge Cannon has barred Routh from asking are those involving jurors’ stance on Palestine, their opinion of Trump’s proposed acquisition of Greenland, and what they would do if they were driving and they saw a turtle in the middle of the road — which Routh said could speak to jurors’ character and mindset.

After a full day of jury selection on Monday, prosecutors successfully challenged twenty potential jurors due to concerns that they could not judge the case fairly, with Routh agreeing to all but one of the removals. Routh signaled he plans to challenge seven of the jurors.

Prosecutors allege that after planning his attack for months, Routh hid in the bushes of Trump’s Palm Beach golf course with a rifle in the predawn hours of Sept. 15.

With Trump just one hole away from Routh’s position, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle poking out of the tree line and fired at him, causing him to flee, according to prosecutors. Routh was subsequently arrested after being stopped on a nearby interstate.

Routh has pleaded not guilty to five criminal charges that risk sending him to prison for life, including attempting to kill a presidential candidate and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

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