Study Links Rise in Test Scores to Nations' Output

U.S. could see $41 trillion gain in GDP over 80 years, it projects

Washington

Relatively small improvements in the skills of a nation’s workforce can have a big effect on its future economic well-being, concludes a new international study that seeks to quantify those benefits.

For the United States, the research suggests, modest gains in student achievement as measured by one international assessment could cumulatively boost the country’s gross domestic product by tens of trillions of dollars over the coming decades.

“There’s almost a one-to-one match between what people know and how well economies have grown over time,” Andreas Schleicher, the head of indicators and analysis for the education directorate at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development , said at a briefing held here last week to discuss the findings. “It’s not the quantity of schooling that drives success in countries, it is the quality of [learning] outcomes that we see that...