David J. Armor, Transaction Publishers
July 2003
David J. Armor, professor of public policy at George Mason University, authored this book, which argues that intelligence is hugely important to success in life and also that it is mutable. In other words, one arrives in the world not with a fixed IQ but with intelligence that can be damaged or enhanced, primarily by one's parents and mainly during the pre-school years. Armor spells out ten "risk factors," of which the child is stuck with some (e.g. parents' level of education, birth weight) but others can be improved upon: cognitive stimulation, emotional support, nutrition, etc. After an exhaustive review of the effects of schools and preschools, Armor concludes that, while they indisputably boost almost everyone's level of knowledge, they don't have significant or lasting differential effects on poor kids. Which is to say, "the effects are sufficiently uniform that whatever skill gaps children bring to school tend to be perpetuated through the school career despite special interventions." That leads Armor to conclude that the best way to maximize children's intelligence is via their parents and that the appropriate policy tools entail strengthening parents and families and mitigating the adverse "risk factors." "The ideal program would begin with young people before they become parents, which means targeting teenagers. . . . The program would first encourage completion of as much education as possible. . . . A major goal for prospective parents would be to delay childbirth until all education is completed, and another major goal would maximize the rate of marriage before couples have children. . . . Finally, the program would offer training in parenting skills." He observes that few states have all the elements of such a policy and nowhere are they well integrated. I don't know how realistic this approach is but it's a sobering proposal and a needed reminder that education policy needs to be accompanied by ways of dealing constructively with other potent influences on the lives of young children. The publisher is Transaction Books, the ISBN is 076580185X and you can obtain additional information at http://www.transactionpub.com/cgi-bin/transactionpublishers.storefront.
