by Paul Tough
1. How to Fail (and How Not To)
[>] he placed Fenger in the most dire category: Michael Martinez, “City’s Schools Now Thinking Small,” Chicago Tribune, September 20, 1996.
hiring an outside contractor: Lynn Schnaiberg, “Scores Up But Schools No Better,” Catalyst Chicago, March 2001.
He created a freshman academy: Martinez, “City’s Schools.”
a math-and-science academy: Jody Temkin, “Last-Minute Decisions Keep Fenger on Its Toes,” Catalyst Chicago, October 1999.
he made Fenger a magnet school: Michael Martinez, “Magnet Programs to Expand in City Schools,” Chicago Tribune, March 16, 2001.
Duncan chose Fenger as one of the pilot schools: David Mendell, “City Dropouts Target of Grant,” Chicago Tribune, April 18, 2006.
the total bill for the citywide project: Sarah Karp, “If at First You Don’t Succeed . . . Turnaround and Go Big,” Catalyst Chicago, January 16, 2009.
[>] “a truly historic day”: Mendell, “City Dropouts.”
[>] Fenger was switched over: Karp, “If at First”; Sarah Karp, “Putting the Brakes on High School Transformation,” Catalyst Chicago, April 28, 2009.
[>] eighty-three school-age teenagers were murdered: Sarah Karp, “Youth Murders Up, Money for School Violence Prevention in Doubt,” Catalyst Chicago, January 28, 2011.
[>] “Turning Gold into Lead”: English translation of Vincent Felitti, “Belastungen in der Kindheit und Gesundheit im Erwachsenenalter: die Verwandlung von Gold in Blei,” Zeitschrift für Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie 48 (2002).
[>] Over the course of a few years: Shanta R. Dube, et al., “Childhood Abuse, Household Dysfunction, and the Risk of Attempted Suicide Throughout the Life Span,” Journal of the American Medical Association 286, no. 24 (December 26, 2001).
two-thirds of the patients had experienced: Ibid.
they “stunned us”: Robert Anda, “The Health and Social Impact of Growing Up with Adverse Childhood Experiences,” unpublished paper, www.acestudy.org.
Compared to people with no history of ACEs: Robert Anda, Vincent Felitti, et al., “The Enduring Effects of Abuse and Related Adverse Experiences in Childhood: A Convergence of Evidence from Neurobiology and Epidemiology,” European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 56 (2006). For more on the ACE data, see Vincent J. Felitti and Robert F. Anda, “The Relationship of Adverse Childhood Experiences to Adult Medical Disease, Psychiatric Disorders, and Sexual Behavior: Implications for Healthcare,” in The Hidden Epidemic: The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease, eds. Ruth A. Lanius, Eric Vermetten, and Clare Pain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Valerie J. Edwards et al., “The Wide-Ranging Health Outcomes of Adverse Childhood Experiences,” in Child Victimization, eds. K. A. Kendall-Tackett and S. M. Giaromoni (Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute, 2005); and Vincent J. Felitti, Paul Jay Fink, Ralph E. Fishkin, and Robert F. Anda, “An Epidemiologic Validation of Psychoanalytic Concepts: Evidence from the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study of Childhood Trauma and Violence,” in Trauma und Gewalt 1 (2006).
twice as likely to smoke: Anda, Felitti, et al., “Enduring Effects.”
[>] twice as likely to have heart disease: Edwards et al., “Wide-Ranging Health Outcomes.”
twice as likely to have liver disease: Maxia Dong et al., “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Self-Reported Liver Disease,” Archives of Internal Medicine 163 (September 8, 2003).
thirty times more likely to have attempted suicide: Dube et al., “Childhood Abuse.”
forty-six times more likely to have injected drugs: Felitti and Anda, “Relationship of Adverse Childhood Experiences.”
their risk of ischemic heart disease: Felitti et al., “Epidemiologic Validation.”
[>] When a potential danger appears: For this description of stress function, I’m relying on Robert M. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994); Seymour Levine, “Stress: An Historical Perspective,” in Handbook of Stress and the Brain, Part 1: The Neurobiology of Stress, eds. T. Steckler, N. H. Kalin, and J.M.H.M. Reul (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005); and Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built in Early Childhood (Cambridge, MA: Center on the Developing Child, 2010).
[>] Bruce McEwen, a neuroendocrinologist: My knowledge of Bruce McEwen’s work comes from conversations with him as well as from Bruce S. McEwen, “Protection and Damage from Acute and Chronic Stress,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1032 (2004); Sapolsky, Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers; and Teresa Seeman et al., “Modeling Multisystem Biological Risk in Young Adults: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study,” American Journal of Human Biology 22 (2010).
[>] researchers, led by Teresa Seeman: Seeman et al., “Modeling Multisystem Biological Risk”; and Teresa Seeman et al., “Socio-Economic Differentials in Peripheral Biology: Cumulative Allostatic Load,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1186 (2010).
[>] Among her patients with an ACE score of 0: Nadine J. Burke, Julia L. Hellman, Brandon G. Scott, Carl F. Weems, and Victor G. Carrion, “The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on an Urban Pediatric Population,” Child Abuse and Neglect 35, no. 6 (June 2011).
46 percent of kindergarten teachers: Sara E. Rimm-Kaufman, Robert C. Pianta, and Martha J. Cox, “Teachers’ Judgments of Problems in the Transition to Kindergarten,” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 15, no. 2 (2000).
Head Start teachers reported: Janis B. Kupersmidt, Donna Bryant, and Michael T. Willoughby, “Prevalence of Aggressive Behaviors Among Preschoolers in Head Start and Community Child Care Programs,” Behavioral Disorders 26, no. 1 (November 2000).
[>] compared them to a team of air traffic controllers: Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, “Building the Brain’s ‘Air Traffic Control’ System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function,” working paper 11 (Cambridge, MA: Center on the Developing Child, February 2011).
[>] two researchers at Cornell University: Gary W. Evans and Michelle A. Schamberg, “Childhood Poverty, Chronic Stress, and Adult Working Memory,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 16 (2009).
[>] something uniquely out of balance about the adolescent brain: Laurence Steinberg, “A Behavioral Scientist Looks at the Science of Adolescent Brain Development,” Brain and Cognition 72 (2010).
two separate neurological systems: Laurence Steinberg, “A Social Neuroscience Perspective on Adolescent Risk-Taking,” Developmental Review 28, no. 1 (March 2008); Laurence Steinberg, “A Dual Systems Model of Adolescent Risk-Taking,” Developmental Psychobiology 52, no. 3 (April 2010).
[>] Researchers from Northwestern University: Karen M. Abram et al., “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Trauma in Youth in Juvenile Detention,” Archives of General Psychiatry 61 (April 2004).
Academically, they were severely behind the curve: Roseanna Ander, Philip J. Cook, Jens Ludwig, and Harold Pollack, Gun Violence Among School-Age Youth in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Crime Lab, 2009).
[>] researchers in Meaney’s lab noticed a curious thing: Dong Liu et al., “Maternal Care, Hippocampal Glucocorticoid Receptors, and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Responses to Stress,” Science 277, no. 5332 (September 12, 1997).
[>] Researchers counted every instance of maternal licking and grooming: Christian Caldji et al., “Maternal Care During Infancy Regulates the Development of Neural Systems Mediating the Expression of Fearfulness in the Rat,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95, no. 9 (April 28, 1998).
[>] a number of cross-fostering experiments: Christian Caldji, Josie Diorio, and Michael J. Meaney, “Variations in Maternal Care in Infancy Regulate the Development of Stress Reactivity,” Biological Psychiatry 48, no. 12 (December 15, 2000).
[>] It goes much deeper than that: Ian C. G. Weaver et al., “Epigenetic Programming by Maternal Behavior,” Nature Neuroscience 7, no. 8 (August 2004);
Robert M. Sapolsky, “Mothering Style and Methylation,” Nature Neuroscience 7, no. 8 (August 2004).
using the brain tissue of human suicides: Patrick O. McGowan et al., “Epigenetic Regulation of the Glucocorticoid Receptor in Human Brain Associates with Child Abuse,” Nature Neuroscience 12, no. 3 (March 2009); Steven E. Hyman, “How Adversity Gets Under the Skin,” Nature Neuroscience 12, no. 3 (March 2009); Hanna Hoag, “The Painted Brain: How Our Lives Colour Our Minds,” Montreal Gazette, January 18, 2011.
[>] Clancy Blair, a researcher in psychology at NYU: Clancy Blair et al., “Salivary Cortisol Mediates Effects of Poverty and Parenting on Executive Functions in Early Childhood,” Child Development 82, no. 6 (November/December 2011).
When mothers scored high on measures of responsiveness: Clancy Blair et al., “Maternal and Child Contributions to Cortisol Response to Emotional Arousal in Young Children from Low-Income, Rural Communities,” Developmental Psychology 44, no. 4 (2008). See also Clancy Blair, “Stress and the Development of Self-Regulation in Context,” Child Development Perspectives 4, no. 3 (December 2010).
Gary Evans, the Cornell scientist: Gary W. Evans et al., “Cumulative Risk, Maternal Responsiveness, and Allostatic Load Among Young Adolescents,” Developmental Psychology 43, no. 2 (2007).
[>] Attachment theory was developed in the 1950s and 1960s: Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
[>] Egeland and Sroufe began tracking this group: My knowledge of the Minnesota study comes mostly from conversations with Byron Egeland, Alan Sroufe, Andrew Collins, and other researchers; from L. Alan Sroufe, Byron Egeland, Elizabeth A. Carlson, and W. Andrew Collins, The Development of the Person: The Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation from Birth to Adulthood (New York: Guilford Press, 2005); from Alan Sroufe and Daniel Siegel, “The Verdict Is In: The Case for Attachment Theory,” Psychotherapy Networker (March/April 2011); and from Karen, Becoming Attached.
two-thirds of children in the Minnesota study: Sroufe et al., Development of the Person, 132.
[>] When teachers ranked students on indicators of dependency: Ibid., 133.
When teachers and other children were surveyed: Ibid., 139–41.
more self-confident, more curious: L. Alan Sroufe, “Attachment and Development: A Prospective, Longitudinal Study from Birth to Adulthood,” Attachment and Human Development 7, no. 4 (December 2005): 357.
early parental care predicted which students would graduate: Sroufe et al., Development of the Person, 211, 228; Shane Jimerson, Byron Egeland, L. Alan Sroufe, and Betty Carlson, “A Prospective Longitudinal Study of High School Dropouts Examining Multiple Predictors Across Development,” Journal of School Psychology 38, no. 6 (2000).
could have predicted with 77 percent accuracy: Sroufe et al., Development of the Person, 210; Jimerson et al., “A Prospective Longitudinal Study.”
[>] In one study, Dante Cicchetti: Dante Cicchetti, Fred A. Rogosch, and Sheree L. Toth, “Fostering Secure Attachment in Infants in Maltreating Families Through Preventive Interventions,” Development and Psychopathology 18, no. 3 (2006).
An intervention called Multidimensional: Megan R. Gunnar, Philip A. Fisher, and the Early Experience, Stress, and Prevention Network, “Bringing Basic Research on Early Experience and Stress Neurobiology to Bear on Preventive Interventions for Neglected and Maltreated Children,” Development and Psychopathology 18, no. 3 (2006).
Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up: Mary Dozier et al., “Developing Evidence-Based Interventions for Foster Children: An Example of a Randomized Clinical Trial with Infants and Toddlers,” Journal of Social Issues 62, no. 4 (2006).
[>] After just ten home visits: Kristin Bernard et al., “Enhancing Attachment Organization Among Maltreated Children: Results of a Randomized Clinical Trial,” Child Development 83, no. 2 (March 2012).
[>] Heather Mac Donald, an Olin fellow: Heather Mac Donald, “Chicago’s Real Crime Story,” City Journal, Winter 2010.
2. How to Build Character
[>] who won them (and their parents) over: Jay Mathews, Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009), 160.
the highest scores of any school in the Bronx: Abby Goodnough, “Structure and Basics Bring South Bronx School Acclaim,” New York Times, October 20, 1999.
[>] a front-page story on KIPP in the New York Times: Jodi Wilgoren, “Seeking to Clone Schools of Success for the Poor,” New York Times, August 16, 2000.
completed a four-year college degree: KIPP pays particular attention to the six-year graduation figure because it is the generally accepted benchmark for college-graduation statistics. As of the spring of 2012, nine years after the students in KIPP Academy’s Class of 2003 were scheduled to graduate from high school, two members of the cohort are still enrolled in a BA program and on track to graduate this year, which will put the class’s total graduation rate at 26 percent. Three other students have earned two-year degrees. The remaining twenty-five students have no postsecondary degree.
[>] Learned Optimism, a book by Martin Seligman: Martin E. P. Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1991).
a “severe low mood”: Ibid., 13.
[>] permanent, personal, and pervasive: Ibid., 44.
[>] a “manual of the sanities”: Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4.
a “science of good character”: Ibid., 9.
works from Aristotle to Confucius: Ibid., 15.
[>] “Virtues,” they wrote, “are much more interesting”: Ibid., 10.
“the good life”: Ibid., 4.
a big national push for character education: See, e.g., Roger Rosenblatt, “Teaching Johnny to Be Good,” New York Times Magazine, April 30, 1995; and Charles Helwig, Elliot Turiel, and Larry Nucci, “Character Education After the Bandwagon Has Gone,” paper presented in L. Nucci (chair), “Developmental Perspectives and Approaches to Character Education,” symposium conducted at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, March 1997.
[>] A national evaluation of character-education programs: Social and Character Development Research Consortium, Efficacy of Schoolwide Programs to Promote Social and Character Development and Reduce Problem Behavior in Elementary School Children (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2010); Sarah D. Spark, “Character Education Found to Fall Short in Federal Study,” Education Week, October 21, 2010.
In his 2008 book: David Whitman, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2008).
“not just how to think but how to act”: Ibid., 3.
[>] “The problem, I think, is not only the schools”: Martin E. P. Seligman, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being (New York: Free Press, 2011), 103.
For her first-year thesis: Angela Lee Duckworth and Martin E. P. Seligman, “Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents,” Psychological Science 16, no. 12 (2005).
[>] an ingenious experiment to test the willpower: Walter Mischel, “From Good Intentions to Willpower,” in The Psychology of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation to Behavior, eds. Peter M. Gollwitzer and John A. Burgh (New York: Guilford Press, 1996); Jonah Lehrer, “Don’t!,” New Yorker, May 18, 2009.
Children who had been able to wait for fifteen minutes: Lehrer, “Don’t!”
[>] think of the marshmallow as a puffy round cloud: Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and Monica L. Rodriguez, “Delay of Gratification in Children,” Science 244, no. 4907 (May 26, 1989).
[>] a researcher named Calvin Edlund: Calvin V. Edlund, “The Effect on the Behavior of Children, as Reflected in the
IQ Scores, When Reinforced After Each Correct Response,” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 5, no. 3 (Fall 1972).
[>] two researchers from the University of South Florida: Joy Clingman and Robert L. Fowler, “The Effects of Primary Reward on the I.Q. Performance of Grade-School Children as a Function of Initial I.Q. Level,” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 9, no. 1 (Spring 1976).
[>] giving blood donors a small financial stipend: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).
He tested several different incentive programs: Roland G. Fryer Jr., “Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (2011); Roland G. Fryer, “Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools,” NBER Working Paper 16850 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2011); Roland G. Fryer Jr., “Aligning Student, Parent, and Teacher Incentives: Evidence from Houston Public Schools,” NBER Working Paper 17752 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2012); Amanda Ripley, “Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?,” Time (April 8, 2010); Elizabeth Green, “Study: $75M Teacher Pay Initiative Did Not Improve Achievement,” Gotham Schools (March 7, 2011).
[>] Segal wanted to test how personality: Carmit Segal, “Working When No One Is Watching: Motivation, Test Scores, and Economic Success,” Management Science (in press).
[>] Big Five conscientiousness was embraced: See, e.g., “Introduction: Personality and Industrial and Organizational Psychology,” in Personality Psychology in the Workplace, eds. Brent W. Roberts and Robert Hogan (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001); and Robert Hogan, Personality and the Fate of Organizations (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007).
