Virtually no attention has been paid to the fact that there were major NAEP losses —heavily skewed against disadvantaged students — well before the COVID shutdowns.
Nobody is talking about schools resuming completely to normal this fall, but the economic problems caused by the pandemic would not be solved even if they did.
Unless schools actually get better than they were in 2019, existing research indicates this will lead to permanently lower future earnings.
For the United States, the already accrued learning losses are expected to amount to $14.2 trillion, and would grow if schools are unable to restart quickly.
Balancing widespread health, academic and political challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, districts and schools will also face the prospect of reduced budgets as they attempt to resume instruction this fall.
Renowned economist and education researcher Eric Hanushek (Stanford University) joins CPRE Executive Director Jonathan Supovitz (University of Pennsylvania) to discuss the potential economic and workforce impacts of the pandemic, and how a prolonged downturn might affect students.
Make schools better than they were by relying more on the best teachers.
Technological advances in the economy present both challenges for firms and workers tied to outmoded production methods and great opportunities for those able to adapt.
The nation is stuck with a bad equilibrium in terms of teacher salaries: salaries are insufficient to attract new teachers who can fuel improved schools and yet they are not even high enough to satisfy current teachers.
The nation is stuck with a bad deal on teacher salaries: salaries insufficient to attract new teachers who can fuel improved schools and yet not even high enough to satisfy current teachers.
The single most important way to ensure that everybody can participate in the modern economy is to ensure that they have the skills that are demanded by the economy.
The PISA scores are a good index of the future quality of the labor force in each country, and the quality of the labor force in turn has been shown to be a decisive factor in determining the long-run growth rates of nations.
Nobody is talking about schools resuming completely to normal this fall, but the economic problems caused by the pandemic would not be solved even if they did.
Ohio can build on relative strength in math education to shore up the educational skills of Ohioans and better position the state for the coming artificial intelligence revolution.
This week on Banter, AEI’s John H. Makin Visiting Scholar Eric Hanushek discusses the relationship between teacher cognitive skills and student achievement.
Dr. Hanushek’s research finds that there are substantial differences in teacher cognitive skills across countries that are related to student performance. Dr. Hanushek will soon publish a new academic paper in the Journal of Human Resources on the subject. You can read the full paper and listen to Dr. Hanushek’s appearance on the “Political Economy” podcast with Jim Pethokoukis at the links below.
Putting our heads in the sand is not the right answer. Test scores today say a lot about what our labor force will look like over the coming decades. Our current students' skills will dictate our economic future in the long run. Understanding the implications of higher skills—as measured by regular standardized tests—provides a way of assessing how our country as a whole will fare in the coming years.
In a knowledge-based economy, early employment gains with vocational training may lead to later problems when specific skills become obsolete.
Nobody can realistically improve if they do not know where they stand or what is possible. Throwing more money at the global learning crisis without solid information on the specific challenges facing individual low- and middle-income countries is unlikely to be more successful in the future than in the past.