Josh Angrist, well known economist and founder of the School Effectiveness & Inequality Initiative says that students can learn a lot in their later school years. “We’re showing dramatic gains in middle school and later for kids who come in at a very low baseline,” he notes of the research on urban charter schools. The idea that children cannot compensate for disadvantages they face early in life is “a compelling narrative,” he says, “but it’s not true.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/508381/the-natural-experimenter/