narrowing the achievement gap by bringing all students to a baseline level of proficiency for the oecd a pisa score of about could imply gdp increases for the united states of usd trillion according to historical growth relationships oecd b longitudinal studies have also demonstrated that student performance at school is a good indicator of subsequent successful education and labourmarket pathways oecd a this is not to say that efforts should not be directed towards mitigating the shortterm effects of the economic recession but it is lo say that longterm issues should not be neglected