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Poor students with poorly educated parents fare worse in U.S. than other countries

Intuitively, a child’s academic performance is likely higher if he or she has highly educated parents, and lower if the child has less educated parents. A new report confirms that’s true, but reveals that American children of poorly educated parents do a lot worse than their counterparts in other countries [1], reports the Huffington Post. Income mobility just within the U.S. has significantly declined since the mid-90s [2], according to the Boston Federal Reserve. But the Pew Economic Mobility Project takes this a step further by asking, “Does America promote mobility as well as other nations? [1]” Researchers in 10 countries took to analyzing socioeconomic advantage as a function of parental education. They found that a child’s economic and educational status is more affected by parental education in the U.S. than in any other country studied. Using a basic metric, researchers studied performance gaps on vocabulary tests among five-year-olds with highly educated parents, moderately educated parents, and poorly educated parents. Among the English-speaking countries studied, the American gap between children with highly educated parents and poorly educated parents was the widest, while the Canadian gap proved to be the most narrow…

Click here for the full report [3]