In 2008 the Stanford economist Eric Hanushek developed a new way to examine the link between a country’s GDP and the academic test scores of its children. He found that if one country’s scores were only half a standard deviation higher than another’s in 1960, its GDP grew a full percentage point faster in every subsequent year through 2000.
Rethinking School
For the U.S. to remain competitive, its students need to learn vastly more, much more quickly. New approaches prove they can.
Summary.
Reprint: R1203E
Economists have found that the higher a country’s academic test scores, the faster its GDP grows. That puts the United States’ perennially mediocre test scores in a particularly ominous light.
Progress is being made, says Childress, of the Gates Foundation, but at the rate even the most engaged school systems are improving, it will take 80 years to catch up to where China is now. New approaches, including personalized technology, online videos, and innovations that combine software with classroom programs, could be the breakthrough tools American students need to improve dramatically faster.
A version of this article appeared in the March 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review.
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Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Digital Intelligence . Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Excel in a world that's being continually transformed by technology.