If you wonder what it means to our kids to be learning in real classrooms where they can interact face-to-face with teachers and their peers, take a look at how the pandemic learning loss affected West Virginia’s results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ annual report card.

Based on reading and math test scores for fourth and eighth graders last year, the Mountain State’s National Assessment of Educational Progress’ results have plunged not only far below the national average, but to the lowest ever.

Of course, Gov. Jim Justice tried to dress up the results by reminding us there is more to an education than just test scores.

But test scores are the means we have of objectively measuring the quality of the education being received by our students.

When those scores have dropped to the worst ever, it doesn’t matter how much the students “like” their teachers, there is still something very wrong that needs more than lip service to correct.

“Now if the kids love their teachers and the community loves the school, we’ve got to have a bunch of good stuff going on there, don’t we?” Justice said in his usual faux folksy manner. “Let’s just be fair. Way, way, way beyond maybe bad test scores. But it doesn’t mean we turn our back on the test scores. We want to do better there.”

But there are many pieces to this puzzle. West Virginia parents — or grandparents and foster families — are struggling in a way that does not make it easy to value and support education at home. Our culture still carries too much distrust and outright dismissal of formal education. In Charleston, some lawmakers are pushing to exert more control over education. And many county boards of education don’t want to face the reality that results in the classroom just aren’t at an adequate level.

Teachers are asked to be counselors and nurses, to feed and clothe students, to be their safe space in a frightening world — and they are asked to deliver higher test scores. Some of them manage to do that. Too many struggle, and see little hope.

Rather than shrug off the worst ever test scores, Justice and others in Charleston had better be working on ways to improve the myriad conditions that have led to such dismal results. This should be a defining moment in our state where we come together to help turn around our educational shortcomings.

Our students and state deserve no less.