By Betsy Hill
The most recent release of the Nation’s Report Card sparked wide concern among educators and policymakers. The headline numbers—only 35 percent of fourth-graders reading at a proficient level and just 40 percent achieving proficiency in mathematics—show little change from prior years and point to a larger, persistent problem: deep and lasting disparities in student performance.
While national proficiency rates are discouraging on their own, the persistent achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and English learners are especially alarming. Decades of investment in programs such as Title I and IDEA have not erased these differences in reading and math outcomes.
When educators and policymakers examine why these gaps continue, equity is a central focus. Many well-documented inequities—uneven per-pupil spending, variability in teacher experience, and unequal access to technology and instructional resources—are regularly discussed. A less visible but equally important disparity is cognitive development, a factor contemporary neuroscience shows is tightly linked to students’ ability to learn.
Neuroscience has clarified how the brain develops and how core cognitive processes support learning. This body of research is especially relevant for students from low-income backgrounds and for those with learning disabilities. The evidence indicates that students’ readiness to learn is shaped by cognitive capacities that vary widely when children enter school—but crucially, those capacities can be developed.
Every child has the biological potential to learn; learning is the brain’s fundamental activity. However, children do not all arrive in the classroom with the same level of cognitive skills. Brain plasticity means these skills can change and grow through targeted experiences. In practical terms, education’s role is to create experiences that physically change neural pathways in ways that support further learning.
Core cognitive skills—attention, visual-spatial processing, executive functions such as working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility, plus short- and long-term memory processes—form the foundation for academic learning and social-emotional competence. Reports from organizations like Digital Promise and the OECD, along with multiple research studies, emphasize that strong cognitive skills make learning more efficient, while weak cognitive skills hinder progress in reading, math, and classroom behavior.
A growing body of research documents the relationship between socioeconomic status and cognitive development. On average, children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to show less-developed cognitive capacities than peers from higher socioeconomic groups. This association reflects the influence of economic factors, not race or gender, and it appears in both brain imaging studies and cognitive assessments.
Neuroimaging studies have identified differences in brain structure correlated with socioeconomic status: variations in gray matter volume, differences in hippocampal structure—important for short-term memory and consolidation of long-term memory—and disparities in frontal and parietal regions that are key to executive functions, attention, and sensory integration. Cognitive testing parallels these findings; assessments often show gaps in executive functioning, memory, and attention that align with socioeconomic differences. In our work with urban charter schools, for example, cognitive assessments identified executive function weaknesses in a majority of students.
Importantly, these cognitive gaps do not vanish immediately when students encounter good curriculum and supportive classrooms. Without direct attention to underlying cognitive skills, academic interventions and high-quality instruction can be less effective because students may lack the cognitive tools needed to access learning.
Despite their central role, cognitive skills are rarely an explicit focus in regular classroom instruction unless a child is formally identified with a specific learning disability. Schools often presume that students already possess the necessary cognitive tools for learning—or that those tools are as developed as they will become. Neuroscience suggests a different approach: explicitly assessing and developing cognitive capacities for all students as part of an equitable education strategy.
Fortunately, techniques to strengthen cognitive skills are well established. For decades, clinicians have used interventions to build attention, memory, and executive function. More recently, these techniques have become more accessible through computer-based training programs, and other approaches—such as mindfulness, structured physical activities like dance or martial arts, and targeted classroom practices—have shown promise in supporting cognitive development.
Recognizing that every student—and every teacher—has a profile of cognitive strengths and weaknesses is essential. A comprehensive, integrated approach that includes explicit development of cognitive capacity alongside high-quality instruction is a vital strategy for closing achievement gaps. From an equity and ethical standpoint, helping every child develop the cognitive skills that enable learning should be a priority for schools and systems committed to ensuring all students reach their potential.
About the Author
Betsy Hill is President of BrainWare Learning Company, an organization that applies neuroscience to build learning capacity. An experienced educator, she has studied neuroscience and education with experts including Dr. Patricia Wolfe (author of Brain Matters). She served as chair of the board of trustees at Chicago State University and teaches strategic thinking in the MBA program at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and an MBA from Northwestern University.
This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media organization focused on the ongoing shift toward digital curriculum and the broader implications for teaching and learning.