Indeed, a friend who teaches kindergarten in the Chicago public schools believes, in fact, that more than 20 percent of the children she sees are not ready for school. A report published that same year by Lucile Newman of Brown University and S. Buka of the Harvard School of Public Health stated that 12 percent of children were learning impaired before reaching kindergarten due to preventable causes such as malnutrition, lead poisoning, low birthweight, and alcohol and drug abuse during pregnancy. T raditionally, parents have been responsible for bringing up children to be ready for school at age five or six. Unfortunately, many parents have little capacity to prepare their children for school. There is no way for the state's care to substitute completely for the nurturing and love that a parent or close relative brings to the child.
Humans attain a surprisingly large fraction of their physical height while still very young.
In fact, we attain half of our mature height by age two and a half. Human intelligence also develops at this decelerating rate. A study at the University of Chicago has shown that by the age of four, most of a human's IQ is already in place. However, some successful programs point to strategies that work. Head Start, launched 30 years ago by Lyndon Johnson, was our country's first attempt to prevent the stunted physical, cognitive, psychological, and social growth that so often plagues the children of poverty.