School-age children affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich., nearly a decade ago suffered significant and lasting academic setbacks, according to a study released Wednesday, showing the disaster’s profound impact on a generation of children.
The study, published in Science Advances, found that after the crisis, students faced a substantial decline in math scores, losing the equivalent of five months of learning progress that they hadn’t recovered by 2019, according to Brian Jacob, one of the study’s authors. The learning gap was especially prevalent among younger students in third through fifth grades and those of lower socioeconomic status. There was also an 8 percent increase in the number of students with special needs, especially among school-age boys. But the study notes that there remain many questions about whether it was the lead in the water directly or broader community trauma that contributed to the academic decline.
