The warnings come after widespread exposure to toxins was found in new research using EPA and census data to map out the air pollution exposure for nearly 90,000 public schools across the US.
“This could well be impacting an entire generation of our society,” said Dr Sara Grineski, an academic who has authored the first national study, published in the journal Environmental Research, on air pollution and schools.
Grineski and her University of Utah colleague Timothy Collins grouped schools according to their level of exposure to more than a dozen neurotoxins, including lead, mercury and cyanide compounds.
The research found that:
• Only 728 schools achieved the safest
possible score.
• Five of the 10 worst polluted school
counties have non-white populations of
over 20%
• The five worst polluted areas include New
York, Chicago and Pittsburgh, as well as
Jersey City and Camden in New Jersey. One
teacher in Camden told the Guardian that
heavy industry was “destroying
our children”.
Cash-strapped authorities have routinely placed schools on the cheapest available land, which is often beside busy roads, factories or on previously contaminated sites. Teacher unions worry that the Trump administration’s enthusiasm for charter schools, championed by education secretary Betsy DeVos, will diminish federal intervention to reverse this.
The study found that pre-kindergarten children are attending higher risk schools than older students – a stark finding given the vulnerability of developing brains.
Pollution exposure is also drawn along racial lines. While black children make up 16% of
all US public school students, more than a quarter of them attend the schools worst affected by air pollution. By contrast, white children comprise 52% of the public school system but only 28% of those attend the highest risk schools. This disparity remains even when the urban-rural divide is accounted for.
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