Thursday

 Mostly summarized from Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Economics, 5th Ed.

PART 9 The Real Economy in the Long Run
Chapter 25 of 36 Production and Growth
Section 13 of 23
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Things government can promote and strengthen to increase productivity and living standards include:
1· saving and investment
2· investment from abroad
3· education
4· health and nutrition
5· property rights and political stability
6· free trade
7· research and development
8· population growth
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3· Education
Education is an investment in human capital.
It is at least as important as physical capital investment for a country's economic success.
In the United States, historically each year of school has raised a person's wage
by a ten percent average.
In less developed countries human capital is especially scarce.
The difference in wages between educated and uneducated workers within the country is larger than within developed countries.
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Government policy can enhance a country’s standard of living by providing good schools and encouraging the population to take advantage of educational opportunities.
Investment in human capital has an opportunity cost.
When people are in school, they forego wages they could have earned.
In less developed countries children often quit school at an early age even though the benefit of more schooling is very high.
Typically it’s because their labor wages are needed to help support their family.
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Many economists have argued human capital is especially important for economic growth because human capital creates positive externalities.
An externality is the effect of one person's actions on the well-being of another person.
An educated person might conceive new ideas about how to best produce goods and services and societal improvements in general.
The ideas enter society's knowledge pool and everyone can use and benefit from them.
These ideas are an external benefit of education because the return for society is in addition to the return for the individual.
This argument is a justification of subsidies to human-capital investment
in the form of public education.
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One problem facing poor countries is brain drain due to the emigration of many of their most educated workers to rich countries where these workers can earn more and enjoy a higher standard of living.
This brain drain makes people remaining in the country poorer than if the educated stayed.
The brain drain problem is a dilemma for policymakers.
On one hand the U.S. and other rich countries have the best systems of higher education.
Poor countries want to send their top students abroad to gain the best possible education.
On the other hand those students who have spent time in rich countries may choose not to return home.
This brain drain reduces the poor nation's human capital stock.
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In the U.S. are high school students’ test scores rising or falling?
ChatGPT:
In the U.S., high school test scores are generally falling, especially in core subjects like math and reading.
What the best data shows (NAEP – “Nation’s Report Card”)
The main national benchmark is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The most recent results (2024) show clear declines:
High school (12th grade) trends
Math and reading scores both dropped since 2019
Only about 22% proficient in math and 35% in reading
A record share of students are below basic levels
Scores are at or near historic lows
In plain terms: more students are struggling, and fewer are meeting expected standards.
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Longer-term pattern
This isn’t just a short-term dip:
Scores were already trending downward before the pandemic.
The pandemic made the decline worse, but didn’t start it.
Achievement gaps between top and bottom students are widening.
Reading scores for younger students are also declining nationwide
Math shows mixed results (some small rebounds), but still below pre-2019 levels
This matters because weaker early performance feeds into weaker high school outcomes.
Summary
Overall education results direction: Down
Subjects hit hardest: Reading and math
Who is most affected: Lower-performing students (gap widening)
Trend duration: About a decade, accelerated after COVID
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Why are the test scores falling?
CGPT:
U.S. high school test scores are falling mainly due to a combination of pandemic-related learning loss and longer-term behavioral trends.
School closures and remote learning disrupted foundational skill development —especially in math— and many students still haven’t caught up.
At the same time, chronic absenteeism has surged, with a significant share of students regularly missing school, which compounds learning gaps.
Outside the classroom, students are reading less and spending far more time on phones and short-form digital content, weakening attention spans and reading comprehension — skills essential for nearly all academic subjects.
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These problems are reinforced by broader structural and cultural factors.
Achievement gaps have widened, with lower-performing students falling further behind due to differences in home support and resources.
Schools are also dealing with more mental health challenges, classroom disruptions, and teacher turnover, all of which reduce instructional quality and consistency.
In some cases, reduced emphasis on practice and mastery —or looser academic expectations— means students advance without fully learning core material.
Together, these forces create a feedback loop where missed learning leads to disengagement, which then leads to further academic decline.
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the problem is a dilemma for policymakers
mondai wa seisaku ritsuansha ni jirenmadearu