Brian Jacob speaks with the Washington Post about the educational outcomes of school-age children who were affected by the Flint water crisis
A new study by Jacob and colleagues examining the lasting toll of the crisis is published in Science Advances.
In 2014, the municipal water source in Flint, Michigan was switched, causing lead from aging pipes to leach into the city’s drinking water. A decade later, Brian Jacob, professor of education policy and economics, and his colleagues have published a study, The Effects of the Flint water crisis on the educational outcomes of school-age children, in Science Advances.
The study shows that students impacted by the water crisis suffered significant and lasting academic setbacks, highlighting the disaster’s profound impact on a generation of children, reports the Washington Post:
“Students faced a substantial decline in math scores, losing the equivalent of five months of learning progress that hadn’t recovered by 2019….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.”
Speaking to the Post about the study’s findings, Jacob said: “It’s a substantial reduction in [student] achievement. It’s a tragedy. It’s a massive case of government failure in one of its basic jobs to help ensure the physical well-being of its citizens.”
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