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' 'LI B
Millions of American slum children
are
needlessly failing in
school. An exciting new study is proving that such failure
can
be prevented. The study also contains vital information for
every family . Parents, pay attention .
b y
Cl ifford
C.
Marcussen
Photography by John Kilburn
I
N AMERICA'S
poverty pockets, thou–
sands of normal, healthy children
are becoming mentally retarded.
These children have no known defect of
the central nervous system. No disease
has stunted their development. No
injury has crippled their brains. Yet as
they grow older, their l.Q.'s progres–
sively drop - until they
become
men–
tally retarded.
Puerto Rican, Mexican-American,
American Indian, Negro and Caucasian
children all suffer this same curse. It
doesn't matter if these children live in
the rural or urban areas. Both suffer the
same retardation.
But must these children fail in
school? Is there an icevitable cycle of
poverty and educational failurc?
Oc
can failurc -
and
mental rctardation
- be prevented?
The Role of the Home
In an attempt to discover the causes
of school failure, investigators of the
1950's repeatedly found that slum (and
it can be a rural slum)
home mviratl–
menl
simply had not properly prepared
the children to succeed m school.
An antidote was prescribed: Build
hundreds of "catch-up" preschools for
four-year-olds. Here, the slum child
could be quickly taught everything he
needed before starting school.
During the mid 1960's, such pre–
schools sprouted across the Uoited
States. Project Head Start caught Amer–
ica's imagination. Preschools also multi–
plied among local school districts and
community-action groups.
But, to the surprise of parents, teach–
ers and experts, slum children contioued
to fail in scbool.
"Too little, too late" was the eval–
uation of project after project. The chil–
dren may have enjoyed the year; they
may have shown more interest and
enthusiasm than ever before. In the best
programs, they may cven have shown
intellectual gains during the preschool
year. But they did not improve on I. Q.
or acbievement tests after entering
school.
These preschool programs discovered
one critica! factor:
the pervasive influ–
ence of the chi/d's parents and home
,,,
•
environment.
Nine months of "catch–
up" were not able to counter the impact
of
)'ears
in the child's
real
world of
ignorance, poverty and hopelessness.
And no teacher could even begin to
reverse the influence of mother's
contin–
lting
bad example.
Even the few excellent preschools
that managed to stimulate substantial
l.
Q.
jumps saw almost all of their
gains fade away as soon as the d1ild left
the personal instruction of his preschool
teacher. The preschool had not been
able to effectively teach parents how
to encourage their child's intellectual
growth.
Today, however, more information is
being made available on how parents
can cope with their situation. For
exan1ple, dramatic results are being
recorded at the University of Wiscon–
sin's Milwaukee Project, a different kind
of preschool.
The Milwaukee Project
The Project began in 1964, with a
study of the relationship between pov–
crty and low intelligeoce. An inter–
disciplinary team under Dr. Rich Heber
surveyed Milwaukee's poorest residen–
tia! section. According to census data,
the arca had the lowest average family
income, the worst overaowding and the
most dilapidated housing
in
the city. lt
was, in short, a classic big-city slum.
Predictably, the area also had the
highest rate of "mental retardation" in
the city. The major finding of the survey