Learning loss in math could reduce Tennessee students’ lifetime earnings by nearly 6 percent

Tennessee’s learning loss in math could have a permanent impact on the lifetime earning potential of its students.That’s according to Dr. Eric Hanushek of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution think tank. Hanushek says students could see a 5.8 percent drop in overall lifetime earnings based on the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) math results.PISA is provided to 15-year-old students from more than 70 countries every three years and Tennessee students dropped 12 points between 2018 and 2022 on the assessment.Hanushek says that learning could additionally result in a $200 billion loss in the state’s gross domestic product for the remainder of the 21st century.“The economic loss for each state depends on both the learning losses suffered by its students and the size of the state’s economy. The lower skills of the state workforce lead to lower growth, and these costs accumulate over time,” wrote Hanushek.Hanushek presented his 50-state analysis during a virtual event last month hosted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD), which is an international organization that works with governments, policymakers, and citizens to find solutions to a range of social, economic, and environmental challenges.He says the lifetime earnings loss Tennessee and other states are experiencing could be especially drastic for lower-achieving students whose learning loss predates the pandemic as opposed to higher-achieving students who started experiencing learning loss during it.“There is this problem that the struggling students are hurt the most,” said Hanushek.Globally Tennessee’s performance on the PISA ranks right along the average for countries across the world. The volunteer state’s performance came in just ahead of Iceland and Israel and behind Croatia.Hanushek believes the state’s only chance to remedy learning loss is while students are still in school and education leaders need to act quickly. He says going back to the previous “normal” will ensure this learning loss is permanent.“Once they leave school, they are basically lost to us. We can’t expect employers or even universities to make up for the learning losses that we’re seeing. We have already graduated 15.5 million students who we can’t touch anymore. So, for them, the losses and the economic losses and the learning losses that I portrayed before are going to be permanent on average. They are not going to recover,” said Hanushek.