You can take the kid out of the hood. And you should.

We all know poor children do worse, on average, in school. Countless studies tell us so. But a new study suggests the problem isn't just poverty -- it's where poverty forces these children to live.

Poor neighborhoods are occasionally violent, racially and ethnically segregated, with few "good" schools or safe places to play, and the place itself has a negative effect on ability, according to a new study from three universities.

Researchers looked at more than 2,000 Black children in Chicago, testing them over seven years, and found that ones from poor neighborhoods did worse on verbal and cognitive tests than those from better neighborhoods -- even if the children had the same family income. The difference, after two years, was about four IQ points or a whole year in school.

Part of the problem, researchers said, is that parents may "hunker down" in a poor neighborhood, out of fear. Their children don't get exposed to as many verbal encounters and good communication models.

Read the whole study here.

--Mary Ellen Flannery