 | Education and Economic Growth
6/25/2008 4:51 PMA recent article, "Education and Economic Growth" by Eric Hanushek, Dean Jamison, Eliot Jamison and Ludger Woessmann in the Hoover Institution's publication "Education Next," found a clear, strong association between quality achievement and a nation's economic growth. Specifically, the researchers noted that:
Quality school achievement explained three-quarters of the global variation in GDP growth; Economic growth can increase by two-thirds of a percentage point annually as a consequence of a highly skilled workforce; School attainment plays a more significant role in a country's economic growth only when coupled with quality achievement; and If U.S. students had become the highest achievers in math and science by 2000 in the world, there would have been a 4.5 percent increase in GDP by 2015, which amounts to the total spending on K-12 education in the U.S. today, and may have been enough to sustain education costs in 2015 and beyond.
In the most recent 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the U.S. ranked 21st among the 32 Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations that participate in the exam, behind countries such as Finland, Japan, and the Netherlands.
To read the article, go to: http://www.hoover.org:80/publications/ednext/16110377.html
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