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[S]tudents are learning mathematics four grade levels higher than they were 50 years ago. In reading, the gain is a full year.

The study undercuts negative narratives in some significant ways. It shows that any economic advantage by a child's community (often short-handed as "ZIP codes") does not predetermine academic success. More importantly, it provides fresh evidence that intelligence is innate regardless of genetic background. Both findings support efforts to make teaching of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) more inclusive.

"When we examine differences by student race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, longstanding assumptions about education inequality start to falter," noted the authors, M. Danish Shakeel and Paul E. Peterson, in the publication Education Next.

"Black, Hispanic, and Asian students are improving far more quickly than their white classmates in elementary, middle, and high school. ... Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds also are progressing more quickly than their more advantaged peers in elementary and middle school."

Those trends, the authors note, may reflect progress in areas outside education, such as better nutrition and cleaner air and water. Yet the study's more significant contribution reaches beyond material development. It adds evidence to work showing that intelligence is not a fixed endowment.

"Not long ago, intelligence quotient, or IQ, was considered a genetically determined constant that shifted only over the course of eons, as more intellectually and physically fit homo sapiens survived and procreated at higher rates," the authors observed. The growth rates they found in math and reading skills, however, confirm similar growth rates in fluid reasoning and critical thinking measured by other studies in recent years.

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