“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

Op-Ed Columnist

A Poverty Solution That Starts With a Hug

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

New York Times

Published: January 7, 2012

PERHAPS the most widespread peril children face isn’t guns, swimming pools or speeding cars. Rather, scientists are suggesting that it may be “toxic stress” early in life, or even before birth.

This month, the American Academy of Pediatrics is issuing a landmark warning that this toxic stress can harm children for life. I’m as skeptical as anyone of headlines from new medical studies (Coffee is good for you! Coffee is bad for you!), but that’s not what this is.

Rather, this is a “policy statement” from the premier association of pediatricians, based on two decades of scientific research. This has revolutionary implications for medicine and for how we can more effectively chip away at poverty and crime.

Toxic stress might arise from parental abuse of alcohol or drugs. It could occur in a home where children are threatened and beaten. It might derive from chronic neglect — a child cries without being cuddled. Affection seems to defuse toxic stress — keep those hugs and lullabies coming! — suggesting that the stress emerges when a child senses persistent threats but no protector.

Cues of a hostile or indifferent environment flood an infant, or even a fetus, with stress hormones like cortisol in ways that can disrupt the body’s metabolism or the architecture of the brain.

The upshot is that children are sometimes permanently undermined. Even many years later, as adults, they are more likely to suffer heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other physical ailments. They are also more likely to struggle in school, have short tempers and tangle with the law.

The crucial period seems to be from conception through early childhood. After that, the brain is less pliable and has trouble being remolded.

“You can modify behavior later, but you can’t rewire disrupted brain circuits,” notes Jack P. Shonkoff, a Harvard pediatrician who has been a leader in this field. “We’re beginning to get a pretty compelling biological model of why kids who have experienced adversity have trouble learning.”

This new research addresses an uncomfortable truth: Poverty is difficult to overcome partly because of self-destructive behaviors. Children from poor homes often shine, but others may skip school, abuse narcotics, break the law, and have trouble settling down in a marriage and a job. Then their children may replicate this pattern.

Liberals sometimes ignore these self-destructive pathologies. Conservatives sometimes rely on them to blame poverty on the poor.

The research suggests that the roots of impairment and underachievement are biologically embedded, but preventable. “This is the biology of social class disparities,” Dr. Shonkoff said. “Early experiences are literally built into our bodies.”

The implication is that the most cost-effective window to bring about change isn’t high school or even kindergarten — although much greater efforts are needed in schools as well — but in the early years of life, or even before birth.

“Protecting young children from adversity is a promising, science-based strategy to address many of the most persistent and costly problems facing contemporary society, including limited educational achievement, diminished economic productivity, criminality, and disparities in health,” the pediatrics academy said in its policy statement.

One successful example of early intervention is home visitation by childcare experts, like those from the Nurse-Family Partnership. This organization sends nurses to visit poor, vulnerable women who are pregnant for the first time. The nurse warns against smoking and alcohol and drug abuse, and later encourages breast-feeding and good nutrition, while coaxing mothers to cuddle their children and read to them. This program continues until the child is 2.

At age 6, studies have found, these children are only one-third as likely to have behavioral or intellectual problems as others who weren’t enrolled. At age 15, the children are less than half as likely to have been arrested.

Evidence of the importance of early experiences has been mounting like snowflakes in a blizzard. For example, several studies examined Dutch men and women who had been in utero during a brief famine at the end of World War II. Decades later, those “famine babies” had more trouble concentrating and more heart disease than those born before or after.

Other scholars examined children who had been badly neglected in Romanian orphanages. Those who spent more time in the orphanages had shorter telomeres, a change in chromosomes that’s a marker of accelerated aging. Their brain scans also looked different.

The science is still accumulating. But a compelling message from biology is that if we want to chip away at poverty and improve educational and health outcomes, we have to start earlier. For many children, damage has been suffered before the first day of school.

As Frederick Douglass noted, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 8, 2012, on page SR11 of the New York edition with the headline: A Poverty Solution That Starts With a Hug.

True Cost of High School Dropouts

Op-Ed Contributors

The True Cost of High School Dropouts

By HENRY M. LEVIN and CECILIA E. ROUSE
Published: January 25, 2012

ONLY 21 states require students to attend high school until they graduate or turn 18. The proposal President Obama announced on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address — to make such attendance compulsory in every state — is a step in the right direction, but it would not go far enough to reduce a dropout rate that imposes a heavy cost on the entire economy, not just on those who fail to obtain a diploma.

 In 1970, the United States had the world’s highest rate of high school and college graduation. Today, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we’ve slipped to No. 21 in high school completion and No. 15 in college completion, as other countries surpassed us in the quality of their primary and secondary education.

Only 7 of 10 ninth graders today will get high school diplomas. A decade after the No Child Left Behind law mandated efforts to reduce the racial gap, about 80 percent of white and Asian students graduate from high school, compared with only 55 percent of blacks and Hispanics.

Like President Obama, many reformers focus their dropout prevention efforts on high schoolers; replacing large high schools with smaller learning communities where poor students can get individualized instruction from dedicated teachers has been shown to be effective. Rigorous evidence gathered over decades suggests that some of the most promising approaches need to start even earlier: preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, who are fed and taught in small groups, followed up with home visits by teachers and with group meetings of parents; reducing class size in the early grades; and increasing teacher salaries from kindergarten through 12th grade.

These programs sound expensive — some Americans probably think that preventing 1.3 million students from dropping out of high school each year can’t be done — but in fact the costs of inaction are far greater.

High school completion is, of course, the most significant requirement for entering college. While our economic competitors are rapidly increasing graduation rates at both levels, we continue to fall behind. Educated workers are the basis of economic growth — they are especially critical as sources of innovation and productivity given the pace and nature of technological progress.

If we could reduce the current number of dropouts by just half, we would yield almost 700,000 new graduates a year, and it would more than pay for itself. Studies show that the typical high school graduate will obtain higher employment and earnings — an astonishing 50 percent to 100 percent increase in lifetime income — and will be less likely to draw on public money for health care and welfare and less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. Further, because of the increased income, the typical graduate will contribute more in tax revenues over his lifetime than if he’d dropped out.

When the costs of investment to produce a new graduate are taken into account, there is a return of $1.45 to $3.55 for every dollar of investment, depending upon the educational intervention strategy. Under this estimate, each new graduate confers a net benefit to taxpayers of about $127,000 over the graduate’s lifetime. This is a benefit to the public of nearly $90 billion for each year of success in reducing the number of high school dropouts by 700,000 — or something close to $1 trillion after 11 years. That’s real money — and a reason both liberals and conservatives should rally behind dropout prevention as an element of economic recovery, leaving aside the ethical dimensions of educating our young people.

Some might argue that these estimates are too large, that the relationships among the time-tested interventions, high school graduation rates and adult outcomes have not been proved yet on a large scale. Those are important considerations, but the evidence cannot be denied: increased education does, indeed, improve skill levels and help individuals to lead healthier and more productive lives. And despite the high unemployment rate today, we have every reason to believe that many of these new graduates would find work — our history is filled with sustained periods of economic growth when increasing numbers of young people obtained more schooling and received large economic benefits as a result.

Of course, there are other strategies for improving educational attainment — researchers learn more every day about which are effective and which are not. But even with what we know, a failure to substantially reduce the numbers of high school dropouts is demonstrably penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Proven educational strategies to increase high school completion, like high-quality preschool, provide returns to the taxpayer that are as much as three and a half times their cost. Investing our public dollars wisely to reduce the number of high school dropouts must be a central part of any strategy to raise long-run economic growth, reduce inequality and return fiscal health to our federal, state and local governments.

Henry M. Levin is a professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Cecilia E. Rouse, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, was a member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2011.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 26, 2012, on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: The True Cost Of High School Dropouts.

Inattention Associated with School Failure

School Support for ADHD Children May Be Missing the Mark: Inattention, Not Hyperactivity, Is Associated With Educational Failure (Science Digest August 28, 2011)

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2011%2F08%2F110829070608.htm&h=fAQB3-5sI

Science Digest reports on a 20 year study of 2000 children.  New research from the University of Montreal shows that inattention, rather than hyperactivity, is the most important indicator when it comes to finishing a high school education.  Only 29% of children with inattention problems will graduate high school.  Early intervention to teach attention controls is needed to aid in students' success. 

     "In the school system, children who have attention difficulties are often forgotten
      because, unlike hyperactive kids, they don't disturb the class," said Dr. Sylvana Côte,
      who led the study. "However, we know that we can train children to pay attention
      through appropriate activities, and that can help encourage success at school."

Mental health experts have started a discussion of separating hyperactivity and inattention problems in the new addition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). 
   
      "These two health issues have now been more precisely dissected, and we may now
       need to define a differentiated type of inattention that is independent from hyperactivity,
       to improve our understanding of the phenomenon and better tailor interventions,"
       Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pingault said.

Kasting Connections' Perspective:

My 25 years of prescriptive teaching has taught me that hyperactivity and inattention are two different issues.  You may see both conditions in a student, but they need to be addressed differently.  I was just presenting a math lesson as a guest teacher in a sixth grade classroom when a student brought this very issue to light. 

The young man was excited about the lesson, but he was distracted by the activity in the classroom.  Although he wanted to participate, his inability to prioritize what sensory information was bombarding him kept him from attending to the lesson on a consistent basis.  Most of the students knew that my voice and the markers writing on the whiteboard were the sounds and sights to focus on.  This young man did not have that innate ability to decipher all the data that was streaming through his system.  I was able to bring his attention back to task by using several redirection tools, being careful not to associate any judgement placed on his lack of focus.  (Shame is rampant with inattentive children; they know they should be paying attention to the teacher, but some truly don't currently have the ability.)  Each time he returned to task and participated, only to be distracted by a student's comment or any movement in the classroom.

When it was time to practice what they had learned, the young man continued to be drawn to the noises in the environment.  After checking on the other students' understanding, I was able to return to the student to guide his attention. 

"Here's what you should be saying to yourself to help you focus on the math problems." 

I played his "inner voice" while he moved through each step in the process.  Had I known about his attention difficulties before entering the classroom, I would have prepared a mnemonic of the steps to follow.  Instead, I used my physical presence, deep pressure on his shoulder, and a calm voice repeating the cues for each step.  When he got in the rhythm of how to maintain his focus on his work, I walked away giving him a chance to perform on his own.  He was able to maintain focus enough to finish his math problems and turn it in like the other students in the classroom, a feeling that can be fleeting for a student with attention difficulties. 

If I had seen this young man's behavior through a different lense, I may have seen a defiant student who wanted to cause problems and avoid completing his work.  Instead I used cognitive strategies to help him regain control and begin to build self-confidence.  A small step in his school years, but one that can be built upon. 

In his book, A Mind at a Time, Mel Levine, M.D. discusses, in detail, our Attention Control System which is made up of three forms of control:
     1.  Mental Energy Control
     2.  Intake Control (taking in information and over stimuli)
     3.  Output Control (behavior and work)

These three forms of control have to work together if a student is going to  succeed in the classroom.  As educators, and parents, we need to know how these attention controls work and what the signs are if they aren't working. 

 A lack of attention control can look like laziness, attitude problem, poor behavior choices, writing difficulties, sleepiness, and inability to focus on
details.  When a student is displaying some of the above behaviors, it is reasonable to question whether all of his/her attention controls are efficiently functioning. 

Using cognitive strategies can be very successful with students who struggle with attention controls.  Dr. Levine has also written The Mind That's Mine, A Program to Help Young Learners Learn About Learning.  It is accompanied by a student's book, All Kinds of Minds, which is filled with stories of students that students will be able to connect.  "Eddie's Kind of Mind: A Boy with an Attention Deficit" is one of the chapters included.  The teachers's manual, The Mind That's Mine, is filled with lessons, supplementary activities, letters to families, and other resources to guide teachers. 

If you need more guidance in using cognitive strategies with students, Strategic Tutoring, written by Michael F. Hock, Donald D. Deshler, and Jean B. Schumaker gives teachers an excellent resource to develop cognitive strategies for your students. 



Building attention controls is a team approach; parents and teachers need to share what works with each other. 

I would enjoy discussing this issue with anyone who is interested in more detail.  Contact me:
Sandi.Kasting@KastingConnections.com!