Early childhood education could be the best way to raise a nation's collective I.Q. Photo: horizontal.integration (flickr)

Are we simply born with a predetermined IQ, or can it go up or down depending on what happens to us in life? This question of nature versus nurture is explored in a recent study that shows kids raised in poverty have statistically lower IQ's than middle- or upper-middle-class children.

A high IQ doesn't just translate to intellect, writes New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. It also means a better chance of succeeding in life. Several studies show that intensive early childhood education programs can raise children's IQ's over time.

So to close the intelligence gap, Kristof says U.S. parents and policymakers should fund school-based intervention programs in low-income communities.

The implication of this new research on intelligence is that the economic-stimulus package should also be an intellectual-stimulus program. By my calculation, if we were to push early childhood education and bolster schools in poor neighborhoods, we just might be able to raise the United States collective IQ by as much as one billion points.

A Brazilian anti-poverty program known as Bolsa Familia ("Family Fund") is getting attention from governments around the world, writes the Economist. Modeled on a similar program in Mexico, this conditional cash transfer program has been tested successfully in several other Latin American countries, and the World Bank is now looking to start similar programs in Eastern Europe.

In the Brazilian version of the program, poor families with children receive direct transfers of around 70 reals (about $35) a month, on the condition that their children stay in school and have regular health checkups. According to the World Bank, this relatively simple and modest program is unique in that it can help reduce both current and future poverty and inequality in Brazil.

Children learn based on their teachers-- and often national policy regarding education. This month's issue of Foreign Policy explores how the way Germany and France teach economics may spell a dismal economic future.

Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies—France and Germany.