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Achievement Gaps Create “Permanent National Recession”

What if, in the 15 years following A Nation at Risk, the United States had risen to the top of international standards for academic excellence?

The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, a new report from McKinsey & Company, predicts that the U.S. GDP would be $1.3-2.3 trillion higher if the achievement gap between the United States and its international peers were closed in 1998.

The report breaks out the economic consequences of multiple gap categories: achievement gaps between U.S. states, between the U.S. and other countries, between racial categories, and between income levels. In addition to the trillions-scale GDP consequences for not closing the gap between the United States and international peers, we waste roughly 2-5 percent of our GDP for each remaining gap category we neglect. (As much as $700 billion or more for gaps within the states, $670 billion for income-based gaps, $525 billion for gaps between black and Latino students and their white peers.)

"It's the equivalent to a permanent national recession," McKinsey's Bryan Hancock says. "We waste 3 to 5 billion dollars a day by not closing these achievement gaps. This is not simply an issue about poor kids in poor schools; it's about most kids in most schools."

Thomas Friedman likens the report's findings to "Swimming Without a Suit." Here's what the folks at the release event thought:

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave a brief response to the report--calling for longitudinal data systems that were comparable across localities so that we can create transparency, connect data to outcomes, and create systemic change. He also pointed to a sense of complacency about education in the United States, seeming to imply that this report uncovers the hidden costs of endemic apathy.

We can turn this "great crisis into a great opportunity," Duncan said, emphasizing the need to mobilize community will. One suggestion I'd have to McKinsey & Co., and anybody else putting together this sort of report: if you want to get your message out to the community, then hold these report releases in community centers, not the penthouse ballroom of the National Press Club.

Next, a slightly surreal panel, which sat Al Sharpton a couple seats from NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, gave responses to the report and steps for moving forward. As expected, the panel was long on imperatives and short on concrete steps forward--with the exception being Tony Blair's former chief advisor, Sir Michael Barber, who gave a pretty good point-by-point list of items (i.e., change the focus from investing in marginal reductions in class size to investing in improving teacher quality).

Of course, everyone was there to hear what the Reverend Al Sharpton would say. He and his Education Equality Project partner Joel Klein (who delivered the event's welcome address) have been outspoken about blaming teachers unions, in particular teachers contracts, for growing the achievement gap by keeping ineffective teachers in the classroom.

So when Sharpton warned of "George Wallaces" in the liberal party "blocking the doorway" to equity in education, a reporter in the crowd caught the subtext, and during the Q & A asked Sharpton, "Are the NEA & AFT the George Wallaces you speak of?"

Awk-ward.

Sharpton did a little dodge, but then said, "there should be no sacred cows. When will be the day when we all come to the table and, for the sake of kids, everything's negotiable, everything's on the table?"

To which, Van Roekel replied, Moo?

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