Gaps, Economics, McKinsey Report

The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, newly released by McKinsey & Company, deserves our very close attention. The main report and the supporting detail are here. A single sentence from the introduction captures the main point:

The persistence of these educational achievement gaps imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.

The report also offers dollar values for the gaps, saying that our 2008 gross domestic product could have been:

• $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion if our achievement matched "better-performing nations such as Finland and Korea."
• $310 to $525 billion higher if our black and Latino achievement matched white achievement.
• $400 to $670 billion higher if our low-income achievement matched that of other students.
• $425 to $700 billion higher if achievement in low-performing states matched other states.