Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in L.A. Schools

With hugs all around, Mayor Villaraigosa, LA’s elected School Board and Superintendent Brewer announced today that the Mayor will try to improve student performance in two high schools and their feeder schools. The specific schools have not been named and the Teachers’ Union is worried about what it calls “hostile takeovers”. Meantime, here’s some insight into why children in troubled neighborhoods don’t do well in school. An astonishing number have PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder—at nearly twice the rate of the troops coming back from Iraq. LA Unified is one of the few urban districts that acknowledge the problem.

A special thank you to Jill Tucker of the San Francisco Chronicle for today's topic.