Brains, Poverty, and Educators

Complex scientific studies are often misleadingly cited to bolster long-held political beliefs, and a recent study measuring the brains of children and adolescents is the latest.

The study, which appeared in Nature Neuroscience, found a relationship between family income and brain size as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs). Children from what the authors called the “most disadvantaged” families were found to have brains with a smaller surface area than children from families with higher incomes.

The reflexive rhetoric of political scientist Charles Murray and others claim that it supports their view that there’s not much you can do to educate poor kids.

But that’s not what the science says.

Read the full article in Huffington Post.