By Betsy Hill and Roger Stark
In Part One of this series we imagined a practical goal: enabling many more students to strengthen their cognitive skills so they perform at or above the 70th percentile. Why target the 70th percentile? Because students who reach that level generally can learn grade-level material without major curriculum adaptations. Standard cognitive assessments such as the CogAT or CCAT are commonly used to predict academic performance and to identify students who are likely to succeed with typical classroom instruction.
It’s true that within any single population only 30 percent can occupy the top 30 percent. However, subgroups within larger populations often show different distributions of ability. For example, students selected for gifted programs are typically at or above the 95th percentile. What we propose is different: provide groups of students the opportunity to expand their cognitive capacity so that many more can reach the 70th percentile than did so previously.
Several practical examples illustrate this possibility. In one case, all second-grade students (N = 257) in three South Carolina schools completed the CogAT at the start of the school year. Over the next 17 weeks they used cognitive training software two to three times per week, then they were re-tested. Initially, only 13 percent scored at or above the 70th percentile on composite scores. After training, 35 percent achieved that level, and the number of students in the lowest 30 percent dropped sharply.
Another example comes from the Huron Superior Catholic District School Board in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Eight third-grade classes (169 students) took the CCAT (the Canadian analog to the CogAT). Before training this cohort performed slightly above national norms: 23 percent were below the 30th percentile and 35 percent scored at or above the 70th percentile. Following cognitive training conducted three to five times per week for 10 to 14 weeks, half of the students reached composite scores at or above the 70th percentile.
A third case from Hammond, Indiana, involved third through fifth graders selected for after-school cognitive training based on teacher recommendations and parent commitment to consistent attendance. This group began with slightly more students than expected at the 70th percentile or above; after training four times per week for ten weeks, 64 percent reached that mark.
These outcomes demonstrate that moving sizable proportions of students to a threshold at which they can learn effectively in standard classroom settings is achievable with well-designed cognitive training. The implications extend far beyond immediate test-score improvements.
- Greater classroom focus: Teachers reported noticeably higher levels of attention and preparedness. For example, fourth-grade teachers in Sault Ste. Marie observed a cohort more focused and ready to learn than they had seen previously.
- Fewer behavioral issues: Schools implementing cognitive training have consistently experienced reductions in disruptive behaviors.
- Reduced need for extended interventions: When students have stronger foundational learning skills they can handle regular classroom work more readily, and when interventions are required they tend to be more effective and faster.
When students arrive better prepared to learn, principals and teachers can devote more time to fostering deeper learning and personalizing instruction around student interests rather than repeatedly reteaching foundational skills. These changes can also yield financial benefits for schools through more efficient allocation of resources, but the larger economic payoff is borne by students, families, and society.
Several economic analyses underscore the long-term value of improving educational outcomes. For example, an OECD study examined how raising average student performance toward minimum proficiency levels could affect national productivity and GDP. That analysis estimated that lifting the average academic proficiency of U.S. students to a defined minimum proficiency level would expand the U.S. economy by a very large amount over time. Other countries showed gains proportional to how far their average scores were below the target. The core insight is clear: modest improvements in cognitive and academic skills across a population can produce disproportionately large economic benefits.
Educators we speak with—from superintendents to classroom teachers—often tell the same story: workloads are already at or beyond capacity, and asking schools to “work harder” is not a viable solution. Teachers are burned out, and continual emergency adjustments (such as those intensified during the pandemic) are not sustainable. The alternative is to work smarter: invest in approaches that increase students’ capacity to learn so that instruction becomes more effective without simply increasing teacher effort.
Another major implication concerns educational equity. Equal access to quality educational resources—computers, textbooks, effective curricula, well-trained teachers, safe classrooms, and culturally responsive supports—is essential. But equity also depends on the distribution of students’ underlying cognitive skills: attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, verbal and visual memory, reasoning, and the integration of these processes. Research has shown that poverty and other factors influence brain development and cognitive skill levels, producing inequitable starting points across student populations.
The studies described above suggest that with comprehensive, integrated cognitive training, schools can significantly alter the distribution of cognitive capacity within their student populations. If education and economic prosperity are two sides of the same coin, then deliberately addressing cognitive skill disparities should be a central strategy in efforts to achieve greater equity.
About the authors
Betsy Hill is President of BrainWare Learning Company, which focuses on building learning capacity through practical applications of neuroscience. An experienced educator, she has studied the connections between neuroscience and education and has served on the board of trustees at Chicago State University. She also teaches strategic thinking in the MBA program at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and an MBA from Northwestern University.
Roger Stark is Co-founder and CEO of BrainWare Learning Company. For more than a decade he has advanced the effort to make comprehensive cognitive skills training and assessment widely accessible. Stark led the development of BrainWare SAFARI, an online, integrated cognitive literacy training tool built from extensive clinical collaboration and research.
Note: This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media hub focused on the shift in education toward digital curriculum.