Working Paper: NBER ID: w30701
Authors: Elena Doty; Thomas J. Kane; Tyler Patterson; Douglas O. Staiger
Abstract: In the three decades before the pandemic, mean achievement of U.S. 8th graders in math rose by more than half a standard deviation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Between 2019 and 2022, U.S. students had forfeited 40 percent of that rise. To anticipate the consequences of the recent decline, we investigate the past relationship between NAEP scores and students’ later life outcomes by year and state of birth. We find that a standard deviation improvement in a birth cohort’s 8th grade math achievement was associated with an 8 percent rise in income, as well as improved educational attainment and declines in teen motherhood, incarceration and arrest rates. If allowed to become permanent, our findings imply that the recent losses would represent a 1.6 percent decline in present value of lifetime earnings for the average K-12 student (or $19,400), totaling $900 billion for the 48 million students enrolled in public schools during the 2020-21 school year.
Keywords: state test scores; later life outcomes; NAEP; educational attainment; income
JEL Codes: I24; I26; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Improvement in 8th grade math achievement (I24) | Increase in adult earned income (J31) |
| Improvement in 8th grade math achievement (I24) | Improved educational attainment (I24) |
| Improvement in 8th grade math achievement (I24) | Declines in rates of teen motherhood (J13) |
| Improvement in 8th grade math achievement (I24) | Declines in incarceration rates (K14) |
| Improvement in 8th grade math achievement (I24) | Declines in rates of arrests (K42) |
| Recent declines in test scores (I21) | Decline in present value of lifetime earnings for K-12 students (I21) |