France is one of the world’s oldest countries, and its reach extends around the globe through science, politics, economics and perhaps above all, culture. Starting in the Middle Ages ...

A separate team of economists replicated the study with nearly a million elementary and middle schoolers ... forcing them to repeat grades, schools in both countries offer early interventions ...

Less than half of kids in low- and middle ... schools helped push up the number of children reaching the national standard in English by 30 percentage points. But it is not only in poor countries ...