Study Finds Children's Learning Suffers When Parents Are Deployed

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 deployment—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.

“Unfortunately, we don’t find [the results] surprising,” said Kathleen Facon, the chief of educational partnerships for the Department of Defense Education Activity, which operates military schools on bases. “One of the greatest difficulties military children will face, regardless of additional stresses of relocation and school transition, is the effect of being apart from one or both parents...