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Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Kim. Today is Thursday, January 30th, 2025. And we begin with a

less than stellar report card from America's schools. New test scores show that students

haven't yet bounced back from COVID classroom shutdowns and the remote learning that followed.

According to the Department of Education, reading and math skills for fourth and

eighth graders both dipped to below pre-pandemic levels. Education researchers say they aren't

sure why they haven't rebounded, and that zooming out, it appears scores began stagnating and

even declining before the pandemic. On a positive note, two states actually showed improvement over pre-pandemic levels.

Fourth graders in Louisiana scored higher in reading, and Alabama's fourth graders went up in math.

Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics,

says the results overall are sobering, but that hope is not lost.

For the first time in two decades, a commercial-type airplane has broken the sound barrier.

Boom Technologies XB1 achieved a supersonic flight Tuesday, the first of its kind since the

Concord plane was retired

in 2003.

XB1 flew over California's Mojave Desert, reaching Mach 1.1, or about 750 miles per hour,

three times during the half-hour test.

According to Forbes, the company is building a bigger aircraft called the Overture that is reported to have the same capabilities but will be quieter.

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