Opinion

With a 7.1 magnitude earthquake killing more than 300 people in Mexico last week, and an 8.1 magnitude quake striking the southern end of the country earlier in the month, killing nearly 100, a sense of dread is rising throughout California.

After more than a decade of lawsuits, angry meetings and countless students graduating without having experienced a complete high school, it finally happened.

For the last 18 years, I taught a special education class in the Pajaro Valley. Many of my students were farmworker children with learning disabilities: problems paying attention, reading difficulties, hyperactivity, autism, lower IQ and struggles with self-control. I was shocked to discover that one of the most widely used pesticides in the world — chlorpyrifos — has, after over 20 years of solid research at UC Davis, Berkeley, Columbia University and elsewhere, been linked to these difficulties in learning and behavior.