Majority of L.A. 6th-Graders See Violence

A new survey of Los Angeles sixth-graders shows that a vast majority said they had been exposed to violence, either as victims or witnesses. School officials say the findings could help explain an “achievement gap” between pupils in poor, crime-plagued neighborhoods and their more affluent counterparts.

The survey, portions of which were released Thursday at a conference on childhood trauma in Alexandria, Va., reveals dramatic differences in children’s exposure to violence from one part of the city to another. The highest exposures are in parts of South Central and East Los Angeles known to have high rates of violent crime.

At some middle schools, more than 90% of the students surveyed reported that they had been victims of violence or had witnessed it in the preceding year. The violence could have occurred at school or in the community. The students were not asked about domestic violence.

The survey is part of a larger project by the Rand Corp., UCLA and the Los Angeles Unified School District to determine how violence affects schoolwork, and what can be done to help. Previously, the researchers determined that about one-quarter of the children exposed to violence can be expected to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or severe depression, either of which could cause them to fail in school.

“The hard message here is, the stuff you see on the evening news is hurting our kids,” said Tim Buresh, the chief operating officer of the school district. “It’s killing them academically, and the best algebra instruction in the world can’t overcome it.”

School district officials hope to use the survey findings to help qualify for state funding under Proposition 63, the so-called “millionaire’s tax,” which was approved last November. It is intended to provide money to counties for mental health services. School district officials say they will apply for funds to identify and treat children suffering from mental disorders as a result of violence.

Marleen Wong, the district’s director of crisis counseling and intervention, said such screening and treatment would be a common-sense approach, and compared it to screening children for vision or hearing problems.

“We know that violence exposure is linked ... with lower attendance, lower grades, lower test scores,” she said. “It explains a significant segment of the learning gap that we confront in our city as well as many other urban centers around the country.”

L.A. Unified, like other urban districts, is confronting a wide gap in academic achievement that cleaves the district along racial and class lines. Affluent students generally do better than poor students, and whites and Asians tend to do better than African Americans and Latinos.

Exposure to violence is just one of several factors used to explain the gap. What intrigues district officials is that students who have been exposed to violence seem remarkably resilient, and those who suffer emotional or mental problems are generally receptive to treatment.

Wong spoke Thursday at a conference of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, describing preliminary results from the survey of 28,000 sixth-graders last spring.

She said the percentage of children who reported any exposure to violence in the previous year ranged from 70% at some schools to over 90% at others. However, the exposure to the most serious kinds of violence -- children who were beaten, shot, stabbed or personally threatened with a weapon -- varied more widely.

Some neighborhoods, particularly on the Westside and in the more affluent parts of the San Fernando Valley, had very few such incidents. The highest numbers were in an area of South Los Angeles roughly bordered by Manchester Avenue, the Century Freeway, Alameda Street and Western Avenue.

Rand and UCLA have jointly developed a 10-week course of therapy for disorders resulting from exposure to violence that has been tested in several schools in Los Angeles for five years. Early results suggest the treatment is effective, and leads to a sharp improvement in academic achievement.