Innumerable studies collectively indicate the presence of a chasm-like educational achievement gap between America’s richest and poorest children. For years, educators, policymakers and others have sought to close that gap, in part to promote greater social justice. Researchers at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth went one step further, and estimated how much the education gap costs America in terms of economic expansion and tax revenues.
Reported in the New York Times, the study used math and science scores from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment. The average core in the U.S. is 978, while the developed country average is 995 and the Canadian average is 1,044. Eliminating America’s achievement gap would require raising the U.S. average to 1,080, which would rank us third behind South Korea and Japan. If that were accomplished, total output in the U.S. would rise by 10 percent and the lifetime earnings of the poorest quarter Americans would surge 22 percent.
