Study: Deployment Hurts Kids' Grades

April 07, 2011
April 07, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune

After nearly a decade of U.S. military action in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, extended deployments have become a new norm -- and an academic and emotional burden -- for military children.

Army children coping with a parent's long-term deployments -- a cumulative 19 months or more -- have lower test scores than their peers, including other military children, according to a new study by the RAND Corp.'s Arroyo Center, in Santa Monica, Calif., which conducts research for the military. Yet their problems can fly under the radar of school staff who have not been trained to support them, researchers found.