What Makes a Failing School?

(Chapter 4 of A Strange Ignorance)

There is a sinister disconnect between what actually troubles "failing schools" and what politicians blame them for. The allegation that public schools have major academic problems was debunked long ago as a "Manufactured Crisis" by Berliner and Biddle in their book of that name.

"Legislators castigated public schools; one even referred to them as 'criminal production factories.'"       Newspaper guest editorial

So, what exactly is a "failing school?" Is it a school where students have lower scores on achievement tests? The public doesn't think so. They understand the affects of poverty on student achievement. The politicians seem to think so, but much of their rhetoric points to a more fundamental problem. The problem of school violence.

The Arizona legislature has made a concerted effort in recent years to avoid funding anything related to children. In fiscal year 1987 per-pupil spending in Arizona ranked thirty-first in the nation, but now only one state spends less per student. As the Executive Director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, lawyer Tim Hogan, spelled out in an Arizona Republic newspaper guest column:

Arizona has sunk to almost last among the 50 states in funding per student. This resulted from large tax cuts and an unprecedented anti-public-education sentiment at the Arizona Legislature. Legislators castigated public schools; one even referred to them as 'criminal production factories.' Meanwhile, education funding declined.

"An unprecedented anti-public-education sentiment" accompanied by the allegation that public schools have become "criminal production factories" epitomizes the political image of public schools. The so-called "criminal production factories" that legislators blame on public schools are, as noted in the previous chapter, productions of the legislators themselves. Much of the epidemic of crime, seen by Talibanic legislators as failures in moral development, has been documented by scientists as failures in brain development due to the epidemic presence of low-levels of neurotoxins that damage children's brains. This damage has been scientifically verified, has been statistically linked to criminal behavior, and is wholly preventable by legislative action.

In the December, 1999, Phi Delta Kappan magazine for educators, "a Kappan Special Section On Urban Schools" included an article by a Detroit high school principal titled "Urban Schools: Forced to Fail" where, without once mentioning lead poisoning, the author lamented:

Most people agree that the central goal of the public schools is to teach students to read, write, and compute. Urban schools today simply have too many other things to accomplish under too many unfavorable conditions. .... There are demands for safety and surveillance, including fire rules and drills and protection against intrusion, robbery, assault, and vandalism. And there are gangs and the problems that come with drugs. Special education is the fastest-growing element in the urban schools. And it is an element for which urban schools are poorly prepared. Delinquent behavior is too mild a term to describe a problem that can be devastating for urban schools.

Politicians, who ostensibly reflect their constituents, are completely out of step with the public perception of the problems confronting "failing schools." The public does not view academic achievement as being a major problem with public schools. When the 33rd Annual Phi Delta Kappa (PDK)/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools (see: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0109gal.htm) specifically asked "what do you think are the biggest problems with which the public schools of your community must deal?" academic achievement or incompetent teaching was not a concern, but violence was. In fact, "Quality of teaching" was ranked last as a problem by both parents and non-parents in the poll.

Non-parents (respondents who did not have children in school) saw "Lack of discipline/more control" as the biggest problem facing schools (17% both this year and last year) and parents ranked it third at 10%, almost the same as last year's 9% but substantially below the 15% of 1999. Both parents and non-parents ranked "Fighting/violence/gangs" and "Use of drugs/dope" at similar levels, a combined 20% for non-parents and 19% for parents, approximately the same as last year but substantially down from the 32% for parents in 1998.

The biggest single problem perceived by the parents of school children was easily "Lack of financial support" with 17% of public school parents choosing it (compared to 19% last year), while non-parents ranked it second at 15% (down from 17% last year). Parents ranked "Overcrowded schools" second at 15% (compared to 14% last year), but non-parents ranked "Overcrowded schools" next to last at 7%.

In other words, while politicians focus on the concocted academic failings of public schools, what the public actually perceives as the major problems facing public schools are violence and drugs and politicians, with politicians ranking first. Exactly how high-stakes testing is going to address the violence and drugs of "failing" public schools is unexplained by politicians, but these are not symptoms of academic issues. However, as we will soon see, "violence" and "use of drugs/dope" are well-documented symptoms of lead poisoning.

Jim Haner, a Baltimore Sun newspaper reporter, noted in a May 9, 2000, article about new "Studies suggest link between lead, violence":

Lead has been shown to increase aggressive behavior in humans in repeated studies since at least 1943, when doctors at Boston's Children's Hospital first noted a tendency toward "cruel impulsive behavior" and "irritability" in children exposed to lead. (see: http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-te.lead09may09.story)

One of the studies, by the Kennedy Krieger Institute, reported the results of lead exposure in rats. Haner wrote:

In Baltimore, the Kennedy Krieger Institute on Broadway is the primary treatment facility for the hardest-hit kids, an oasis amid the city's worst slums.

"Their new research is totally consistent with a growing body of literature that strongly suggests that the relatively low levels of lead exposure now considered safe - or at least not seriously damaging - may not be safe at all," said Dr. Deborah Cory- Slechta of the University of Rochester in New York.

A leading expert on animal research into the hazards of lead, Cory-Slechta has overseen multiple studies in rat colonies demonstrating that low levels of the toxin can disrupt key brain chemistry that controls inhibition, learning and impulsiveness.

"We see it in rats, we see it in monkeys, and we see something very much like it in children," Cory-Slechta said.

"There is a persistent tendency among lead-dosed organisms to have problems of control, adaptability and discernment, even at very low doses." (ibid)

Crime-Times, an Arizona based national newsletter devoted to "Linking Brain Dysfunction to Aberrant/Criminal/Psychopathic Behavior," summarized a 1996 study linking environmental lead to juvenile delinquency:

The new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, Vol. 275, No. 5, Feb. 7, 1996) by Crime Times Advisory Board member Herbert Needleman and colleagues, followed 212 boys in the Pittsburgh public schools from age 7 through age 11. None of the children had any overt signs of lead toxicity. The researchers calculated the boys' bone lead concentrations using a technique called K x-ray fluorescence, which measures cumulative exposure to lead.

During the four-year study, teachers and parents periodically filled out questionnaires evaluating the children for aggression, delinquency, and other behavioral problems. In addition, the boys themselves were asked to report whether or not they had engaged in antisocial behavior.

Only a slight association between lead levels and behavior was seen at age 7. But at age 11, the researchers report, the children with elevated lead levels were judged by both parents and teachers "to be more aggressive, have higher delinquent scores, and have more somatic complaints than their low-lead counterparts," and "the subjects themselves reported lead-related increases in antisocial acts." Other problems associated with high lead levels included anxiety, depression, social problems, attention deficits, and somatic complaints. Needleman and colleagues say their findings agree with clinical observations linking lead poisoning to disturbed behavior, and 'extend the relationship downward in dose to asymptomatic youths with elevated body burdens.'

The researchers say their findings held true even when they controlled for nine different measures of maternal intelligence, socioeconomic status, and quality of child rearing. "It is possible, of course, that some unmeasured socioeconomic factor is influencing outcome and is associated with lead," they say, "[but] it is unlikely that such a factor would not be correlated with any of the nine socioeconomic variates for which we controlled."

Needleman et al. conclude that "lead exposure is associated with increased risk for antisocial and delinquent behavior, and the effect follows a developmental course." They add that "if [our] findings are found to extend to the population of US children, the contribution of lead to delinquent behavior would be substantial."

Needleman's study was praised as "ground-breaking" by lead expert Kim Dietrich, professor of environmental health at the University of Cincinnati, who says that it is "the first rigorous study to demonstrate a significant association between lead and antisocial behavior." And lead researcher David Bellinger of Boston Children's Hospital, while cautioning that "criminality and violence [are] a final pathway for many different processes," comments that the study "opens the possibility that some of the violence in our society could be the result of preventable environmental pollution." (Crime Times, Volume 2, No. 2, pg 1)

In May of 2000 at a joint conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Pediatric Academic Societies (where another researcher, Dr. Lanphear, also presented research showing that math and reading scores declined even with low blood lead levels), Dr. Herbert Needleman of the University of Pittsburgh presented another paper linking lead exposure to crime. The Medical College of Wisconsin HealthLink website summarizes this paper:

Dr. Needleman, known for his groundbreaking studies on the effects of lead exposure on children that were instrumental in nationwide government bans on lead from paint, gasoline and food and beverage cans, examined 216 youths convicted in the Juvenile Court of Allegheny County, Pa., and 201 non-delinquent controls - students from high schools in Pittsburgh. Bone lead levels, measured by K X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy of the tibia, showed that the delinquent youths had significantly higher mean concentrations of lead in their bones -- 13.7 parts per million (pm) -- compared to the control group. Those results were true for both whites and African Americans and males and females.

"This study provides further evidence that delinquent behavior can be caused, in part, by childhood exposure to lead," said Dr. Needleman. "Of all the causes of juvenile delinquency, lead exposure is perhaps the most preventable. These results should be a call to action for legislators to protect our children by requiring landlords to not simply disclose known instances of lead paint in their properties, but to remove it."

While this study is the first to show that lead exposure is higher in arrested delinquents, it is part of a growing body of evidence linking lead to cognitive and behavioral problems in children. In 1996, Dr. Needleman published a study of 300 boys in Pittsburgh public schools and found that those with relatively high levels of lead in their bones were more likely to engage in antisocial activities like bullying, vandalism, truancy and shoplifting. In 1979, Dr. Needleman, using measurements of lead in children's teeth, concluded that children with high lead levels in their teeth, but no outward signs of lead poisoning, had lower IQ scores, poorer attention and poorer language skills. (see: http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/962133830.html)

The distinction between these three studies by Needleman can be instructive. The 1979 study found that if you took a group of children with "no outward signs of lead poisoning" and used x-rays to separate them into a group with "high lead levels in their teeth" and children with low lead levels, you simultaneously separated them into a group that "had lower IQ scores, poorer attention and poorer language skills" than the low-lead group. In 1996, Needleman took a group of seven-year-old boys without "any overt signs of lead toxicity" and used an x-ray machine to separate them into a high-lead burden group and a low-lead burden group, and again found that by age eleven the high-lead burden group exhibited significantly higher levels of "anxiety, depression, social problems, attention deficits, and somatic complaints" ("somatic complaints" means feeling ill). In 2000, Needleman went the other direction. In this study he took children who had already been adjudicated as delinquent and compared them to similar non-delinquent peers, and found the delinquents had a higher lead burden.

The 1979 study showed that knowing which students had the most lead also told you who had the most academic problems. The 1996 study showed that knowing which students had the most lead also told you who had the most behavior problems. The 2000 study showed that knowing which students were convicted of crimes also told you who had the most lead. These were all among students who ostensibly were not lead poisoned, with "no outward signs of lead poisoning" or "any overt signs of lead toxicity." In other words, you could not tell the difference between them and other students without an x-ray machine, but once you had the x-rays the story was clear. They were seemingly ordinary children in "failing schools" where politicians claim "All Children Can Learn."

"Delinquent behavior is too mild a term to describe a problem that can be devastating for urban schools."       -urban school principal

This clear connection between academic problems, behavioral problems, and lead poisoning becomes relevant when any rational examination of the problems confronting inner-city "failing schools" reveals that "juvenile delinquency" is the dominant problem rather than academic deficiencies. There is every indication that when the Detroit urban school principal quoted in the Kappan magazine article stated "Delinquent behavior is too mild a term to describe a problem that can be devastating for urban schools." he was referring exactly to the "antisocial activities like bullying, vandalism, truancy and shoplifting" linked to lead poisoning in 1996 by Dr. Needleman's published study of boys in Pittsburgh public schools. It is precisely the overwhelming violence that is symptomatic of lead poisoning that is plaguing "failing schools" and creating the academic deficits.

Although American journalists enthralled by the testocratic Taliban seem oblivious to the implications that these studies have for explaining the many problems afflicting "failing schools," others have taken note. It was this Needleman paper which prompted Professor Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, a columnist for the Malaysian New Sunday Times, to write in their June 11, 2000, edition:

When the issue of 'gangsterism' among youngsters, especially in schools, made the headlines early this year, it seemed a relevant topic for this column. … Conventionally one would think in terms of peer pressure, poor self-esteem, lack of discipline and also education, as well as poverty. … With the scientific evidence available today, the association between 'problematic' students (in the academic sense) and that of 'violent' behaviour (such as burning the school) is too much of a coincidence to be overlooked. Last week, this column reviewed the association between environmental pollutants, including lead, and IQ. This week, it will dwell on new research findings suggesting that not only millions more children than previously thought might have lead-linked mental impairment, but that there is also a strong link between lead exposure and juvenile delinquency. (See revised link: http://www.prn2.usm.my/mainsite/bulletin/nst/2000/nst23.html)

America's "criminal production factories" merely attempt to manage the conveyor belt of tragedy that begins well before children ever enter schools because of lead-laced environments the children are forced to grow up in. An environment strangely ignored by educators and politicians alike. Even though if you ask state Health officials they can show you where the lead is found.

The presence of "violence" and "use of drugs/dope" in "failing schools" is not exactly unexpected news to teachers, of course. The New York Times (September 1, 2000) reported on the problem of getting good teachers for low-income schools. After noting "… a court order issued last week compels the Board of Education to assign all newly hired certified teachers to the city's 94 lowest-performing schools until about 400 vacancies there are filled" the reporter quoted a newly certified teacher applying for employment:

She said she would never work in a failing school, because most are in neighborhoods that she considers dangerous and because the demands are overwhelming. "You have to be a combination of a social worker and Mother Teresa to work in those schools," Lisa said, "Those kids deserve a decent education, but we as teachers deserve a decent work atmosphere. We deserve to be safe."

Consider again the factsheet on Lead Poisoning, mentioned in the beginning of this report, prepared by the Center for Children's Health and the Environment of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City which read:

Lead is the most well-studied example of an environmental contaminant that interferes with learning. Lead causes reductions in IQ. In addition, exposure to lead has been linked to disruptive classroom behavior and reduced ability to pay attention. Lead exposure has been shown to be correlated with failure to graduate from high school, as well as a tendency toward violence, addictive behaviors and other behavioral and emotional problems.

This is from medical research, on a hospital website, strangely ignored by educators and politicians. Students who have had their minds warped by exposure to brain damaging neurotoxins are almost certainly what the public perceives as the second biggest problem facing public schools, ranking only behind politicians. But as we will see, the ability to ignore the obvious represents the biggest clue that politicians are the primary problem.