Dallas students from an elementary school where at least 80% of students come from low-income families are projected to earn more than their high-income peers over a lifetime, thanks to education built on brain science, according to a study by the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth and the Momentous Institute.
A case study tracked the progress of 73 alumni from the Momentous School, a private laboratory school serving students in prekindergarten through fifth grade in Oak Cliff.
The 2016-2018 cohorts were compared with national data on outcomes from low-income and high-income students.
Momentous School is operated by the Momentous Institute, a nonprofit that provides mental health services to 5,500 children and their families each year with bilingual licensed therapists.
The study found that 97% of the Momentous alumni who were tracked received a high school diploma, and 48% received a college degree.
By comparison, 91% of the high-income students tracked by National Student Clearinghouse High School Benchmarks Reports earned a high school diploma, and 31% received a college degree.
Using the United States Career Institute data on average lifetime earnings by education level, the researchers expect the Momentous students – tracked up to the bachelor’s degree level – to earn between US$1.3mil (RM5.47mil) and US$2.7mil (RM11.35mil) over their lifetimes, totaling US$157mil (RM660mil) in cohort earnings, according to the report.
Those projections are 26% and 9% higher than the school’s national low-income and high- income peers, respectively, according to the report.
Mental health strategies
Momentous School emphasises brain health, teaching age- appropriate neuroscience and mental health strategies starting at age three, said Dr Jessica Gomez, executive director of Momentous Institute.
Students learn about brain structures, like the amygdala, and conduct projects on how the brain works by fourth and fifth grade, said Dr Andrew S. Nevin, a research professor and the inaugural director of the Brainomics Venture at the Center for BrainHealth at UT Dallas.
All of Momentous’ classrooms display illustrations of how the brain functions, and students learn skills for social and emotional regulation, Nevin said.
The study, led by Gomez and Nevin’s research teams, argues that teaching students neuroscience and mental health from ages three to 10 helps them consider how brain health shapes their choices throughout life.
Studying the brain helps students recognise how emotions and stress impact learning, Gomez said.
When students know how their brain works, they can better regulate their emotions, manage stress and keep their brain ready to learn, she said.
Understanding how the brain works also allows students to improve their cognitive abilities, such as information processing, decision-making and innovation, Nevin said. In an increasingly AI-driven world, these skills are crucial for education and the workforce, he said.
“If you don’t have the ability to synthesise the information in a way better than AI can do, you’re not going to have a job in this world,” Nevin said, who added that their study was not submitted for peer review.
Dr Jennifer Kitil is a postdoctoral research associate with the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. Kitil said social- emotional learning strengthens executive functions like self- control and flexible thinking – skills that will remain crucial as the workforce evolves.
“AI can’t make ethical decisions,” said Kitil, who was not involved with the UT Dallas study.
The aspects of social-emotional learning practices related to managing stress, setting goals or solving problems are grounded in brain science, as they strengthen specific brain areas responsible for learning and decisionmaking, Kitil said.
Other factors at play
Persuading Texas to adopt neuroscience curricula in public schools would require demonstrating replicable results beyond the Momentous School cohort study, according to the neurologists and scientists interviewed by The News.
These experts caution against overgeneralising the case study’s broader implications. Nevin acknowledges they used average earnings projections instead of tracking their precise earnings, saying the students could be earning more than their proposed projections.
Dr Mario De La Garza, who was not involved with the study, is the counselling programme director for faculty affairs and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Counseling at Southern Methodist University.
He supports Momentous Institute, but he also said the study didn’t compare alumni to a control group that received traditional education instead, meaning the study did not have a cohort of Momentous alumni without the brain health education. “A lot of other factors could be at play,” De La Garza said.
“What if it’s wraparound services,” he said, “or what if it’s just teachers that have better relationships with students? I think Momentous is doing all of that, which I would think contributes to these better outcomes.”
Momentous Institute invests approximately US$19,200 (RM80,745) per student, Gomez said, which includes a food programme and college scholarships focused on moving expenses and laptop purchases, among other costs that are not typically covered by school financial aid.
Dr Andrea Lowden and Dr Alison Dolce are associate professors at the Department of Pediatrics at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University. They’re also child neurologists who co-founded The Epilepsy Care Center and NeuroLab Diagnostics.
The two neurologists, who were not involved with the study, raised concerns about the study tracking too few students, and the possibility of the families who enrolled being more highly motivated to help their children succeed.
Still, the TCU experts said the model could foster a supportive environment, benefiting students’ long-term development.
What’s next
Gomez said she wants to study how their model performs against modern educational challenges and examine alumni’s life satisfaction, overall well-being, longevity and relationship quality.
Nevin said the proposed next step is to analyse individual outcomes and investigate possible additional benefits, such as improved mental health and brain performance, better physical health and greater connectedness to people.
While early brain health education is promising, rigorous studies tracking multiple students over several years should occur before advocating for statewide implementation, De La Garza said.
Gomez said their model is already used in 32 states and in seven countries.
“We believe this curriculum is going to help lengthen lifetime expectancy, but also breaks the cycle of trauma,” Gomez said.
“It’s not rocket science,” she said. “It’s more intuitive than you might think. It’s brain science and mental health.” – The Dallas Morning News/Tribune News Service