Los Angeles is not an easy place to be if you’re a teenager. In 2003, the nonpartisan research group Children Now prepared only 37% of high school graduates in LA County for college, according to a comprehensive study. Another 19% dropped out of high school, making the county the fourth worst in California. And only 61% of Los Angeles high school students passed the California High School Exit Exam for English Language Arts in 2004-05. Correspondingly, Los Angeles County has the state’s second-highest rate of fatal and hospitalized juvenile assaults.

Participants have also identified numerous other negative influences that affect their lives and choices, including family conflicts, discrimination and violence against GLBT youth, peer pressure, racism and gender inequities. The risks for youth and their segregation in Los Angeles abound and few programs are available to meet their complex needs or ameliorate these negative conditions.

It is important to give our youth a positive sense of future. Studies show that young people who can envision themselves in their future are less likely to commit violence and more likely to make healthy and purposeful choices in their lives (Benson, 1996). Conversely, young people who believe they will be victims of violence or that their lives are governed by fate, circumstance or are beyond their own control, are more likely to engage in unsafe sex and alcohol and drug abuse. City at Peace-Los Angeles addresses the negative influences in the lives of youth and transforms their potential into positive action.

But how do we give our teens the platform from which they can achieve their potential and the stage from which they can share their vision? How do we give them the skills and confidence to become ambassadors of change? In 2000 College-Bound Seniors: A Profile of SAT Program Test Takers, the College Board reports that SAT scores were 59 points higher on the verbal and 44 points higher on the mathematics portion than students with no course work in the arts.

In Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, the Arts Education Partnership confirms that, “When well taught, the arts provide young people with authentic learning experiences that engage their minds, hearts, and bodies. The learning experiences are real and meaningful to them. While learning in other disciplines may often focus on development of a single skill or talent, the arts regularly engage multiple skills and abilities. Engagement in the arts . . . nurtures the development of cognitive, social, and personal competencies."

The California Arts Council agrees: “Arts education helps build academic skills, increase academic performance, improve behavior, reach kids who are at risk of dropping out of school, improve self-esteem, and build the kind of creative skills that are required of people in the workforce of the new century.”

Countless other studies corroborate these findings. The challenge is in providing a creative environment to the ones who need it most.