How the Flint water crisis set schoolchildren back

School-age children affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich., nearly a decade ago suffered significant and lasting academic setbacks, according to a new 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 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 unanswered questions about whether it was the lead in the water directly or broader community trauma that contributed to the academic decline.

In the study, researchers analyzed standardized test scores from kindergarten through 12th grade across 10 Michigan districts, looking at student outcomes from 2007 through 2019.

Researchers found negative academic effects in these areas for years to come after the crisis, though they found limited or no effects on reading achievement or daily attendance.

“It’s a substantial reduction in their achievement. It’s a tragedy,” said Jacob, a professor of education policy and economics at the University of Michigan. “It’s a massive case of government failure in one of its basic jobs to help ensure the physical well-being of its citizens.”

In 2014, Flint’s emergency manager switched the city’s water source in an effort to save money, but officials did not ensure there were corrosion-control chemicals in the new water supply. Residents quickly began complaining of contaminated water coming from their taps. But the city of majority-Black residents, where a third of the population lives in poverty, was ignored. Nearly 100,000 Flint residents were exposed to lead through their home water sources, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It has been long known that lead is a dangerous neurotoxin with no safe level of exposure. Even low levels of lead in blood are associated with developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral issues, according to the CDC. In more severe cases, the effects of lead poisoning can be permanent and disabling. Childhood exposure to lead can cause long-term harm.

Reached by The Washington Post on Wednesday, Flint Community Schools said it could not make a representative available to comment on the study by the time of publication.

Since learning is a cumulative process, when a student’s learning is severely disrupted - due to circumstances outside of their control - it can affect the child’s ability to learn more advanced material in the future, Jacob said. It can create a vicious cycle that could be a challenge to remediate.

But researchers were puzzled to find that children who weren’t directly exposed to contaminated water at home still faced academic challenges, suggesting there were society-wide ripple effects. Communities that go through crises like this may have mental and traumatic scars, including for children. It can have an impact on students’ ability to succeed academically whether their homes had contaminated pipes, the study found.

While there could be other reasons to explain why there were no differences in impact for those in homes with higher levels of lead in drinking water and those in homes with the safer copper pipes - for example, people may have consumed contaminated water from outside sources - researchers also pointed to stress, anxiety, depression and fear following the crisis, which could have had negative impacts on students’ ability to succeed.

Mary Rourke, a psychologist who has worked with children and families, said all people are sensitive to their environments and situations around them, especially children.

“They haven’t yet built up a sophisticated arsenal of coping strategies, and they’re actually more affected by their environment. They have less of an independent ability to navigate the world,” said Rourke, who is an associate professor of clinical psychology at Widener University.

The Flint water crisis may have forced children and parents into survival mode, which might have made things like the everyday routine of school less of a priority, she said, especially if they were more worried about whether they were going to have the most basic of needs like clean water.

Rourke said children’s care systems may have been compromised during the crisis, because the parents responsible for their environment were facing their own fear, panic and anger.

“The adults in the world at the time that this crisis broke, and probably for a good deal of time afterward, were paying attention to things that can feel more important in the moment than schoolwork and homework,” said Rourke, who was not involved in the new study. “Education is critically important, but survival and making sure that the water system isn’t poisoned is a pretty big deal.”

Young children tend to be more impacted by lead’s toxicity compared with adults because they absorb more proportionally, and their bodies are rapidly growing and developing, said Katarzyna Kordas, an associate professor in the department of epidemiology and environmental health at the University at Buffalo.

People are generally exposed to lead through deteriorating lead-based paint, lead-contaminated dust in older buildings and contaminated water, soil and air, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The new study is just the latest in the growing literature linking childhood lead exposure to developmental delays and a child’s subsequent ability to thrive. Some research links early childhood lead exposure to lower IQ points, while low levels of lead in children’s blood can negatively affect test scores for years to come, according to other studies, especially for poor, minority children.

Kordas, who was not involved in the study and who has also researched toxic metals and child development, was not surprised by the findings. She cited previous research explaining how socioeconomic factors can determine neurodevelopmental outcomes as much as lead exposure can.

“Lead exposure is still important, but other factors matter a lot, especially those that stem from disadvantage or social injustice,” she said. “In Flint, especially as the crisis continued, impacts on the social fabric of the community are a strong potential explanation for the declining scores and climbing special needs.”