The Hidden Cost of Catching Up: How Forecasting Academic Growth Saves Time, Money, and Futures

One of the most pressing challenges in education is not identifying who’s behind. It’s knowing who’s behind early enough to do something about it.

For students, falling behind in foundational skills like reading and math early in their academic careers can set off a chain reaction of consequences. Missed milestones in third-grade literacy or middle school numeracy don’t just impact test scores; they influence high school course placement, graduation timelines, college access, and even long-term income and well-being.

For school systems, the cost of identifying and addressing these gaps too late can be staggering. And for taxpayers, the price tag of delayed intervention, measured in long-term support services, reduced workforce readiness, and lower economic productivity, is one we’re already paying.

Yet despite growing awareness of these consequences, education systems still depend on delayed signals like year-end summative assessments (rather than more frequent interim or formative tests) to determine who needs help and when.

We can’t afford to wait any longer.

The Real Cost of “Catching Up”

The longer a learning gap goes unaddressed, the harder and more expensive it becomes to close.

Research published by the NIH shows that early educational interventions are significantly more effective than later ones. The authors found that “syntheses of the impact of reading interventions provided in the primary grades report higher average impacts on reading outcomes than interventions implemented in the upper elementary and secondary grades.”

Why? Because academic gaps, when left unchecked, tend to widen over time. A student reading below grade level in third grade is four times more likely to drop out of high school than their peers reading at grade level, according to a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. And those who fail to graduate face lifelong economic disadvantages, earning a median of $1.6 million over a lifetime (compared to $2.8 million for bachelor’s degree holders), or roughly $30,000 less per year on average, explains research by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

For school districts, late intervention also means more expensive support systems. Special education placements, grade retention, and intensive tutoring programs often cost thousands of dollars more per student than the costs of earlier supports. Research by Nobel Laureate James Heckman estimates that every $1 invested in high-quality early education returns as much as $7 – $13 in long-term savings by reducing costs in areas like remedial education, public assistance, and the criminal justice system. As reported by firstfocus.org, investments in early learning even save taxpayers money, “with $2.50 of savings for every $1 invested due to less need for support later in life.” It all adds up: the earlier we support student learning, including providing meaningful interventions, the greater the economic benefit for the individual, the educational system, and the community.

The Human Impact: Confidence, Mental Health, and Opportunity

Beyond the budgetary math lies something harder to quantify but even more urgent: the personal toll delayed support takes on students.

Students who struggle year after year without the right interventions can internalize a sense of failure. Confidence erodes. Motivation drops. And in some cases, students stop seeing themselves as capable learners altogether.

Research from the American Psychological Association has long linked academic difficulty in childhood to long-term effects on self-esteem and mental health: “Inadequate and inequitable educational opportunities and poor educational attainment are both risk factors for the development of psychological disorders and an outcome of serious mental and behavioral health problems in childhood and adolescence.” Students who perceive themselves as “behind” often experience higher levels of stress and anxiety, and are more likely to disengage from school entirely.

Conversely, early academic success has a powerful compounding effect. Children who master core literacy and numeracy skills early are more likely to develop positive self-concepts, set and achieve academic goals, and pursue postsecondary opportunities. According to a longitudinal study from the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research, students who demonstrate early academic progress are more likely to persist through high school and postsecondary education, even when controlling for background factors.

In short, early progress builds momentum, both academically and emotionally. The earlier we can detect a student’s trajectory and intervene, if necessary, the greater the odds of long-term success.

The Solution: Forecast, Don’t Wait

So how do we stop missing this critical window when interventions are most effective?

The answer lies in shifting from a reactive model—where educators respond to problems after they’ve become entrenched—to a proactive model that uses ongoing data to forecast growth and support learning in real time.

Rather than waiting for summative assessments to reveal learning gaps at the end of the year (or the following fall, given the lag in reporting), forecasting tools allow schools and districts to make use of the interim assessments already administered throughout the year. By tracking reading and math progress at multiple points throughout the school year, and projecting where students are headed, educators gain a clearer picture of growth and readiness.

This approach allows educators to adjust instruction when it matters most. It also enables early goal-setting, clearer communication with families, more intentional use of interventions, and cost savings in the long run. And when forecasting is tied to benchmarks for college and career readiness, students begin to understand how daily learning connects to future opportunities.

Forecasting using interim scores doesn’t replace summative testing, which is also an accountability measure at the system level. But for the individual student, it makes it possible for teachers to course correct sooner to help prevent surprising year-end results or a multi-year slide.

Make Every Test Count

At MetaMetrics, we’ve long believed that assessment should be a springboard, not a stop sign. That’s why we developed our growth planning tool, designed to help assessment providers, learning platforms, and educators forecast student growth in reading and math throughout the year and far into the future. Bonus: Assessment, when meaningful, also preserves funds at all levels of the education system.

By using Lexile and Quantile measures from interim assessments to map a student’s learning trajectory, we enable assessment platforms to support teachers with powerful visibility. Educators can compare each student’s path to readiness targets for college, careers, or any custom goal, allowing them to identify students who are on pace or at risk of falling behind, early enough to make a difference. And what a difference it can make. Early intervention helps students reach their full potential, yes, but it also means resources that would have been spent on catching up lagging students can be funnelled back into schools and districts to improve learning for all. 

There’s more. When bundled with data about careers, the growth planning tool also empowers students to explore how their academic progress aligns with their career goals, offering insights that are both aspirational and actionable. Growth planning functionality uses the measures already delivered with interim assessments, making every test administered data-rich and actionable. 

By making it possible to forecast learning trajectories and act early, Lexile and Quantile measures help turn every test, whether it’s an interim or summative assessment, into a tool for growth; one that supports the whole learner, not just their score.

Because when we see the road ahead, we don’t just measure learning. We shape it.

Contact us to learn more about our growth planning capabilities for the Lexile Framework for Reading and the Quantile Framework for Mathematics.