The Disturbing Link Between ADHD and Conservative Education Reform
The rate of children diagnosed with ADHD has risen sharply over the last three decades, but experts have disagreed as to the causes. Now, two Berkeley researchers have done a state-by-state analysis of children diagnosed with ADHD, and discovered an interesting correlation.
What the team found was that high rates of ADHD diagnoses correlated closely with state laws that penalize schools when students fail. Nationally, this approach to education was enacted into law in 2001 with No Child Left Behind, which makes funding contingent on the number of students who pass standardized tests. In more recent years, similar testing-based strategies have been championed by education reformers such as Michelle Rhee. But many states passed these accountability laws as early as the 1980s, and within a few years of passage, ADHD diagnoses started going up in those states, the authors found, especially for kids near the poverty line.
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The five states with highest percentage of ADHD cases among schoolchildren (10%) are Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana and North Carolina. All penalize schools with low state exam scores. In contrast, the states with the lowest percentage (less than 5%) of ADHD cases are Nevada, Hawaii, California, Alaska and New Jersey. In those states, school funding is not linked to exam scores.
How do ADHD diagnoses help schools at risk of losing their funding? First, Hinshaw notes, for kids who do have ADHD, it should improve their performance in school, including their test scores. Second, it may help kids who are disruptive in class settle down, which could improve scores for the whole class. Finally, in many areas, the test scores of student with ADHD diagnoses aren’t counted. So even it if it doesn’t help the child, it might help the school.
By the time No Child Left Behind was signed into law, 30 states had already passed these accountability statutes. The maps of those states and the states that have high ADHD rates look remarkably similar — mostly Southern states, with a few in the Midwest.
