The Opioid Crisis and Educational Performance

Abstract

We propose a simple model of how opioids in a community can impact the educational outcomes of children based on both the extent of exposure to opioids in the community and on the child’s vulnerability to any given level of exposure. We then use national data to document where and how the opioid crisis has intersected with students’ performance on standardized test scores in the U.S., focusing particularly on rural communities. Finally, we estimate the extent to which variation in one measure of the opioid crisis, drug-related mortality, is related to variation in test scores. We find strong relationships between the two, as well as evidence that the relationship is particularly salient for third-grade students in rural communities.