@article{a79ac038e9b045399f225a93c8fbc6c8,
title = "The foundational math skills of Indian children",
abstract = "We leverage data on learning for 101,084 public-school students in grades 4, 6, and 8 across 19 Indian states to diagnose their mathematic skills. These data allow us to diagnose their achievement on less frequently assessed skills. We use a novel approach to estimate the share of students who can meet fourth-grade standards. We find that the foundational skills of children are even lower than previously documented: 52% mastered frequently assessed skills, but only 27% mastered typically unassessed skills. These children also make less progress than believed. Gender gaps in these skills emerge between grades 4 and 6 and persist.",
keywords = "Foundational skills, Gender, India, Learning crisis, Mathematics",
author = "{de Barros}, Andreas and Ganimian, {Alejandro J.}",
note = "Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Douglas B. Marshall, Jr. Family Foundation for this project. We especially thank Karthik Muralidharan for his initial involvement in this project as a collaborator. We thank Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Masha Bertling, Emmerich Davies, Andrew Ho, Jalnidh Kaur, Edward Kim, Pranav Kothari, Aarthi Muralidharan, Sridhar Rajagopalan, Maulik Shah, Nishchal Shukla, Gayatri Vaidya, and Martin West for useful feedback that informed this study. We thank Educational Initiatives for making data available. Google.org supported Educational Initiatives with funding for the Student Learning Study. We also thank Anuja Venkatachalam for excellent research assistance. The usual disclaimers apply. The authors have no conflicting interests to declare. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Elsevier Ltd",
year = "2023",
month = feb,
doi = "10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102336",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "92",
journal = "Economics of Education Review",
issn = "0272-7757",
publisher = "Elsevier Limited",
}