The Economic Benefits of Closing the Achievement Gap in American Schools
July 8th, 2009
McKinsey & Company released a report in April of this year titled, “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools.” The report identifies four aspects of the achievement gap in American schools: the international achievement gap, the racial achievement gap, the income achievement gap, and system-based achievement gaps. The findings in the report are striking in their sense of urgency and are worth discussing.
The authors state that “the United States lags significantly behind other advanced nations in educational performance and is slipping further behind on some important measures.” An interesting element of this particular analysis is that this international disparity in educational achievement affects every American student equally, regardless of race, income, or location. Citing research published by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the authors provide some discouraging statistics. For example, “American 15-year-olds are on par with students in Portugal and the Slovak Republic, rather than with students in countries that are more relevant competitors for service-sector and high-value jobs like Canada, the Netherlands, Korea and Australia.” Additionally, the report finds that whereas 40 years ago, the United States was a world leader in high school graduation rates, today it ranks 18th out of 24 industrialized nations in this category. Further, the report’s findings reveal that low-income students in the United States fare significantly worse than low-income students in other industrialized nations in educational attainment.
