Falling Math Scores May Cut Future Earnings
Scores on 8th grade standardized math tests dropped during the pandemic, reversing a large part of the gains students had made since the 1990s. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona called the news last October “appalling.” But declining scores only confirmed for many parents what they had witnessed as their children struggled to engage in classes conducted over Zoom when the schools were closed down. Now comes some of the fallout. The decline in math scores between 2019 and 2022 is expected to reduce the lifetime earnings for the average student by nearly 2 percent, or $19,400 in today’s dollars, according to a new study. This may not sound like a lot spread out over a decades-long career. But think about it this way: after years of rising test scores and incomes, recent 8th graders may lose several hundred dollars a year in income just because they grew up during…
Originally Published on https://squaredawayblog.bc.edu/
I’m a veteran financial and economics reporter, most recently for The Boston Globe, who has also written for The Economist and other publications. I uncovered scandals during the savings and loan crisis in Texas back in the late 1980s, trekked around the world to cover finance and economics in the 1990s, and ventured into Boston neighborhoods to cover the recent subprime mortgage crisis.
While covering subprime mortgages, I began to see the importance of financial behavior and literacy. Wall Street excesses certainly fueled the crisis, but a poor understanding of complex financial products also played a major role. I interviewed dozens of homeowners in the grip of foreclosure who had agreed to home loans that they did not understand and that their brokers did not or could not explain to them. The consequences for these individuals – and the country – were disastrous.
I use the same dogged reporting skills to cover financial issues of growing importance today, including the personal crisis that concerns millions of baby boomers: Retirement.
