Study compares student performance against environmental pollution

University of Michigan researchers are studying connections between air toxins and K-12 student performance in Michigan - and possibly whether air quality should be a factor when deciding where to build public schools.

The study combines census, air quality and school district information to give a bird's-eye view of where schools, poverty and pollution intersect - kilometer by kilometer across the entire state. By using additional public data supplied by Detroit Public Schools, researchers at U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) are taking the study a step further: comparing student performance against environmental data.

The inclusion of the Detroit data - covering 194 schools and more than 100,000 students during the 2007-08 academic year - provides an unprecedented level of detail regarding associations between pollution, income and students' performance in schools.

"Currently, information about the effects of air toxics on Michigan's school-aged population is largely anecdotal," said Paul Mohai, an SNRE professor and the project's lead researcher. "We do not know whether schools in the state are located in areas that are more - or less - polluted than their surrounding communities. It is also uncertain which schools are most at risk from air-toxics exposure and whether such exposures are related to health outcomes, absenteeism, school performance and dropout rates."

Joining Mohai in coordinating the research is Byoung-Suk Kweon, a research investigator and adjunct assistant professor at SNRE.

The Kresge Foundation, based in Troy, Mich., is funding the $485,000, three-year study, which gets under way this summer.

The U-M researchers are looking for links between toxic air exposures and absenteeism, test scores, school dropout rates and health. A computer model will look for these links by creating a series of overlaid maps. A related project objective is to assist community organizations and nonprofit groups with policy recommendations to alleviate such risks.

Potentially, the findings could be used to re-evaluate state and local policies that lead to the siting of new schools in areas with already high concentrations of pollution. At a minimum, the data-crunching and analysis will help identify schools requiring further investigation.