Education Week - May 31, 2023 - 5

The EPA report projects that by the
time global temperatures increase by
2 degrees Celsius, the average maximum
daily temperature during the
school year will reach 69.7 degrees
Fahrenheit-associated with a 4 percent
reduction in learning, translating
to the average student losing
$1,300 in future annual income, according
to the report.
By the time global temperatures
increase by 4 degrees Celsius, temperatures
during the school year
are projected to reach nearly 74 degrees
Fahrenheit-associated with a
7 percent reduction in learning and a
$2,300 loss in annual income.
All told, a rise in global temperatures
could cost future K-12 graduates
between $7 billion and $14 billion
in income. Those losses would
be particularly acute in northern
states like Maine, Montana, New
Hampshire, Vermont, and Wyoming-states
where researchers
see both a coming dramatic rise in
temperatures and a small number of
schools with air-conditioning.
Yet these projections likely underestimate
the total impact of heat on
learning throughout childhood, the
report says, since they only consider
the effects of heat exposure on high
school students.
Outfitting all U.S. public schools
with modern air conditioning systems
that last an average of 20 years
would cost roughly $42 billion, according
to 2021 research from the
Center for Climate Integrity, a nonprofit
environmental group. The EPA
report adds that air-conditioning
systems can contribute to greenhouse
gas increases-an important
tradeoff that schools will need to
ponder in the years to come.
Poor air quality can lead to
behavioral disorders and asthma
As climate change alters the environment,
including temperature,
precipitation, and wind patterns, air
quality is expected to worsen. More
severe weather, including wildfires
and drought, will also lead to more
pollutants in the air.
Children are more vulnerable to
air pollution than adults, and exposure
can significantly affect their
lung function and development, as
well as brain development. The EPA
report says there is some evidence
that poor air quality can contribute
to the development of ADHD.
It can also cause or worsen
asthma. The EPA report projects an
additional 34,500 asthma cases per
year among children in the continental
United States if global temperatures
warm by 2 degrees Celsius. If
they increase by 4 degrees Celsius,
asthma cases among children could
increase by 89,600 per year.
Asthma has been linked to higher
rates of school absenteeism, which
then leads to lost learning and
lower grades, past research has
found. The EPA report estimates
a global temperature increase of 2
degrees Celsius could lead to students
collectively missing 2.24 million
school days a year. Students
of color and students from families
without health insurance are
among the likeliest to suffer these
consequences.
More intense allergy seasons can
lead to several health issues
Climate change will result in longer
and more intense pollen and
allergy seasons. This could again
worsen childhood asthma attacks,
lead to other health issues, and potentially
reduce the amount of time
children spend outdoors. That's a
problem because research shows
the more time children spend in nature,
the less stressed they are and
the more likely they are to maintain
a healthy weight.
The report notes that higher pollen
exposure could lead to students missing
school, or being so uncomfortable
or distracted while at school that they
don't do as well academically.
More frequent and severe
flooding poses health risks
Floods will become more frequent
due to climate change, the report
says, in part because of the rising sea
levels and more severe storms that
lead to flash flooding. Floods are, of
course, particularly dangerous for
children-between 2017 and 2021,
92 children died in flood-related
drownings. The risk of disease may
increase afterward, too, including
from exposure to mold.
Floods and their aftermath are
also traumatic. The EPA report
says that children might experience
post-traumatic stress disorder from
exposure to extreme weather and
displacement from their homes. At
2 degrees Celsius of global warming,
nearly 200,000 additional children
might live in areas from which they
could have to temporarily evacuate,
and that estimate grows to more
than 550,000 children at 4 degrees
Celsius of global warming.
Severe weather that disrupts
school operations can be particularly
devastating for students with disabilities,
according to a recent report by
the National Council on Disability,
an independent federal agency. It
can take months for students with
individualized education plans to
get back on track. And students with
disabilities who are displaced from
their school and transferred to another
one often end up much further
behind on learning than their peers
without disabilities.
The spread of infectious diseases
may become dangerous
Tick-borne illnesses, like Lyme
disease, are already common: In
2019, children up to age 19 experienced
6,560 confirmed and probable
cases, making up about a third of
cases overall. Symptoms range from
a short-term rash to lifelong neurological
or heart conditions. Black
children are particularly at risk, the
report says, since the rash might be
difficult to detect on darker skin.
Yet vector-borne illnesses like Lyme
disease might become more common,
since climate change will alter
the geographic patterns of ticks and
other disease-spreading organisms.
Students Pay a Growing Price for Landing a Job
Outside Their College Major
By Sarah D. Sparks
Students who don't end up in jobs after college
that match their field of study earn less in the long
term, but better guidance in high school can help
them avoid this mismatch.
The pay gap between college-educated workers
in and out of their fields of study widened by more
than half between 1993 and 2019, according to a
new University of Kansas study. This may undercut
the benefits of a college degree for students who
ended up in jobs outside their majors.
The findings come as students, parents, and
policymakers debate the role of college in students'
career choices. National Student Clearinghouse data
show 8 percent fewer students entered college after
high school in 2022 than in 2019, and 40.4 million
college-going students left college without earning a
credential in 2021, 1.4 million more than in 2020.
" Too many students go to college not knowing
what they want to get out of it or how to make it work
for them, " wrote Michael B. Horn and Bob Moesta,
co-authors of the 2019 book Choosing College: How to
Make Better Learning Decisions Throughout Your Life,
in an essay for Education Week. " Committing to a
four-year school and taking on lots of debt when they
lack passion and focus for the endeavor is risky. "
For their study, Kansas researchers Hugh Cassidy
and Amanda Gaulke used data from the National
Survey of College Graduates to compare the
educational attainment, degree fields, and jobs of
college graduates across the country from 1993 to 2019.
Overall, 83 percent of graduates in 2019 found
jobs somewhat or closely related to their chosen
field after college, a 2 percentage point increase
from 1993. But the picture has worsened for
Black and Hispanic college graduates, only about
78 percent of whom were well-matched in their
careers after college.
" These findings could help explain the enrollment
puzzle surrounding why, despite increases to
the college premium during the 1990s, college
enrollment and completion did not keep pace, " the
researchers concluded.
While about 40 percent of graduates who took
jobs outside of their degree field said they were
looking to earn more money or faster advancement,
Cassidy and Gaulke found the majority of them
ended up making less money than they would have
in their degree field, and they were more likely to be
over-educated for the jobs they had.
" One of the things that we know is that
occupations tend to be sticky. If your first job out of
college is well-matched with what you studied, that
tends to carry forward in terms of whatever future
jobs you have over the course of your career, " said
Zack Mabel, a research professor in education and
economics at Georgetown University's Center on
Education and the Workforce, who studies high
school-to-career links but who was not part of the
University of Kansas study. " So, there's a need
for more intention and investment of effort and
resources to help students have a better fit. As a
nation, we need a comprehensive career-counseling
system that has linkages between high school,
college, and career to help individuals understand
what they are capable of pursuing. "
He argued that college-planning programs in high
school should ask students to look beyond basic
majors and tuition available in different colleges,
to dig into what education is needed for jobs that
interest them and the average earnings for different
majors in various college degree programs. For
example, Virginia's Office of Educational Economics
provides information about the level of local demand
and degrees required for different jobs.
Schools should give students more career
exposure in high school, Mabel said, such as
internships, work-study, and job shadowing, to help
them understand the day-to-day atmosphere of
different career fields.
For example, many schools have made a concerted
effort to engage more students in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics. But, the study found
computer science and engineering graduates-
particularly women-paid a bigger mismatch penalty
than graduates in other fields like liberal arts. While
more women are graduating in STEM fields today
than in prior decades, women were less likely than
men to end up getting jobs in those fields, in part
because they were more likely to report worse worklife
balance or fewer chances for promotion.
DATA: See how many students are ending
up in jobs outside of their college field of
study. > edw.link/StudentJobs
From academic recovery to student mental health, teachers and education leaders are grappling with big questions and
challenges. This research column aims to help readers understand what the research says-and doesn't say-about the
current context for learning and learning in general. If you have a question, please send it to ssparks@educationweek.org.
EDUCATION WEEK | May 31, 2023 | www.edweek.org | 5
WHAT THE
RESEARCH SAYS
iStock/Getty Images Plus

http://edw.link/StudentJobs http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - May 31, 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - May 31, 2023