Lori Stern

Walt was in foster care for a time when he was just five years old, after his mother had been hit by a car.

She's been in a wheelchair ever since.

It is.

The teachers and psychologists I talked to said most kids with the EBD label have similar levels of trauma.

In fact, they said if they could come up with a label for kids who end up in EBD classrooms, they'd call it PTSD.

But PTSD is not a label that exists in special ed.

And by the time Walt was six, he was placed in a school for kids with behavioral problems.

Well, it was this completely separate school for kids who administrators believed could not physically be with the general ed population.

The students were mostly kids of color.

In fact, federal data show black kids are twice as likely as white kids to be labeled EBD.

And kids in EBD are disproportionately low income.

Walt is both, black and from a low income family.

The school had pretty intense security.

padded time-out rooms, and a focus on behavior more than on academics.

Walt said that at school, he got in a lot of trouble.

Or as he put it, he was rowdy with the staff.

No, it doesn't.

But I did hear from a lot of experts that many kids with the EBD label really believe they are bad.

They've brought it on themselves.

Even though, Aisha, they usually get the label when they're really young.