(Sue Gunderson & Chris Johnson) 

In 2003, Michael T. Martin, a research analyst for the Arizona School Boards Association, published “A Strange Ignorance: The Role of Lead Poisoning in Failing Schools”. The report concluded, among other things, that “for some reason the education community, even today, displays a strange ignorance of an entire spectrum of medical and psychiatric research demonstrating both the widespread prevalence of childhood lead poisoning and the horrible consequences of lead-induced brain damage”.

As Martin pointed out in his report, school boards then were under attack across the country for their “failing schools,” the “achievement gap,” student drug use and disruptive behavior. His conclusion, if I understand it correctly, was simple. We need to prevent children from being lead poisoned as infants and toddlers, because by the time they start school, the damage is done and the failing schools are but one symptom of the damage.

Schools and lead are back in the news again. A recent study of Detroit Public School (DPS) children confirms what Martin and people doing lead poisoning prevention work have known for decades – elevated lead levels in children interfere with a child’s ability to learn and are a significant contributor to poor student performance. “About 60% of DPS students who performed below their grade level on 2008 standardized tests had elevated lead levels. The higher the lead levels, the lower the MEAP scores, though other factors also may play a role”, according to an article in the May 16, 2010 Detroit Free Press article (http://www.freep.com/article/201005160300/NEWS01/5160413).  This is a shocking number when you understand the impact of lead on a child’s ability to learn.

Research into the exact effects of lead on children’s developing brains has demonstrated that there are permanent changes that impact executive function, fine motor skills, and reading ability.  It is clear that lead poisoning will inhibit a child’s ability to perform in school and that the effects continue to compound as they progress in grade levels.  Coupling this research with the affects of lead on a child’s ability to control impulse and aggression, the failure of lead poisoned children to achieve normal grade progression is severely limited and their behavior often gets them labeled in school as a behavior problem.  

Clearly, lead poisoning is a predictor for failure in school and as Martin foresaw a reason for schools’ failure to succeed.  Because schools do not usually know if a child has a history of lead poisoning, there is no proactive intervention.  Detroit Public Schools is one of the few school districts to actually tie lead poisoning data to educational achievement scores.  North Carolina’s Duke University has done extensive work in this area also.  However, what is to be done now that they know? 

The CDC has created a subgroup of their Lead Poisoning Prevention Advisory Council to study the issue of what should be done for children who have been diagnosed with lead poisoning at any level.  CLEARCorps/USA with several other national leaders requested the subgroup be established to provide guidance to education leaders, schools, the medical community and families with lead poisoned children.  Sue Gunderson, Executive Director of CLEARCorps/USA serves on the committee and states that their goal is to provide solutions so that when children are lead poisoned there is an immediate course of action that acknowledges the insult to their developing brains and begins an assessment and intervention process that allows that child to enter school ready to learn to the best of their ability. The Department of Education is also represented. Perhaps by bringing together educators and lead poisoning prevention experts, we can begin to address the issue of how to help lead poisoned children succeed in school and schools succeed in serving children with a history of lead poisoning.

In addition, CLEARCorps/USA is working to establish a pilot project that might demonstrate how intervention strategies aimed at executive function improvement could benefit lead poisoned children.  The challenge for assessment and intervention for lead poisoned children is that each child reacts to lead differently.  Compounding factors such as poor nutrition, family stress, and poverty all play a role in increasing the likelihood that lead’s impact will be higher. 

Childhood lead poisoning is on the decline in this country due a combination of public policy, education, and direct intervention by government, communities, and lead poisoning prevention experts.   Unfortunately, children living in pre 1978 housing in poor neighborhoods continue to be poisoned every day.  Schools serving these children will struggle to help them succeed. As the report from Detroit demonstrates, we need to hurry up and figure out solutions for families and schools that will allow success.

Martin concluded in 2003 that “public schools can no longer ignore the tragedy of lead poisoning. Environmental lead in low-income housing begins a conveyor-belt of tragedy that inevitably produces precisely the symptoms of “failing schools.” School officials, both administrators and governing board members, need to organize school and community resources in an effort to interdict the poisoning of children during their first three years of life, as well as to look for ways to ameliorate the consequences of lead poisoning in subsequent years. But up to now, schools have done nothing”. 

It is difficult to place blame on the schools when they are not even told that their students have a history of lead poisoning.  Perhaps we should start there.  Health officials, family, and educators need a standardized system that provides this information when the child enters school.  Then an assessment and intervention plan can be created that provides the best we have to offer right now.  Research on how to improve lead poisoned children’s performance in school to compensate for their brain’s dysfunction needs to be widely demonstrated so that other schools can offer these programs. 

As a country, we need to recognize that lead poisoning still affects many of our nation’s children living primarily in poverty.  Schools that serve these children are severely hampered by lack of knowledge, lack of adequate assessment and intervention strategies and dollars, and the political acknowledgement that maybe it is not the teachers or the curriculum that is making a school fail, but it is a combination of factors, one of which is lead poisoning that come together to prevent success.