Have you heard of McKinsey & Company? They’re a global management consulting firm, which means that they hire the best and brightest grads from the world’s top universities, then send them around world to solve business problems for governments and large corporations. The folks at McKinsey have a reputation for being particularly good at what they do; in 2007, their annual revenue was over $5 billion.
Recently, however, a team in their non-profit division turned their brainpower towards a different end: analyzing the achievement gap. Last month they published their findings in a report. Chock full of data, the report also has some surprising insights into the gap’s impact on our nation’s economy, as well as some new evidence suggesting that the gap can be closed.
McKinsey's new report
In describing the economic impact of these gaps, the McKinsey folks don’t mince words. According to their calculations, the combined impact of the achievement gaps, “imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.” That’s deep.
In addition to examining dollar signs, the McKinsey folks also slice and dice the test score data. Unfortunately, some of their findings reiterate the bad news we’ve heard for years. Black and Latino students tend to be two to three years behind white students of the same age. The average poor black fourth grader in Washington, DC, is five years behind the average non-poor white fourth grader in New Jersey.
However, their analysis of test scores also uncovers some new reasons for optimism. Incredibly, from a national perspective, there are places where the racial achievement gap has closed. Latino eighth-graders in Ohio, for example, outperform white students from thirteen other states in reading; they’re seven points ahead of the national average. At least from the national perspective, these students, teachers, and families are closing the racial gap. In Texas, low-income black students perform at the same level as low-income white students in Alabama – not a high bar, but from a comparative perspective they, too, are closing the gap. These numbers, by the way are from the NAEP, a nationally standardized test that’s our best source of data for state-to-state comparisons.
This is fascinating news, as is a final conclusion the report reaches: schools make a difference. McKinsey found enormous disparities between schools and school districts, even when they served similar student populations. In Texas, one large, urban, 88% low-income middle school had its black students scoring at the 75th percentile statewide; another school with almost identical demographics scored at only the 22nd percentile. We know that poverty and race throw additional obstacles in kids’ paths; clearly, what’s going on in their classrooms and schools can help kids overcome them.
Click here to access the full report.
Surprisingly the uk economy shrank a further 0.4% between July and September (the last quarter that there are figures for), so the end of the downturn is a long way off yet – another 6 months at least i reckon, its the longest recession since records began 50 years ago and it wont be till years later the economy and property market recovers, it was’nt until the late 90’s that the property market recovered after the 89/90 recession.
Our country was also hit hard by the Economic Recession. At least we are seeing some signs of economic recovery now. I hope that we could recover soon from this recession.
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I think we are also seeing some signs of recovery from the Economic Recession. Of course, we have no idea of how long it will take to completely recover, but some say it’s going to be longer than for the other recessions in decades. I also scanned an article yesterday that said business owners need a new set of tactics to do well during recovery.
during the height of the economic recession, our online and offline business in the US have suffered some major drop in sales. now our sales are getting slowly back to normal.
http://www.thirdwayblog.com/gap/audrey-hepburn-caught-in-the-gap.html
Our home business was really affected by the Economic recession, we have to cut jobs just to cover up our losses. fortunately, we have already recovered. `
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economic recession is always a bad part of history, we must avoid it at all cost`”~
it is a good thing that we are almost out of recession, the economic recession really sucks ..
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