School's Documented Negative Impacts on the Mental Health of Students

Image Source: News and Features from the National Education Association

Article Citations [PDF]

I briefly wanted to go over some findings on the United State's school system's impact on students mental health.

An [i] will be put next to information as a hyperlink for it's source, or further reading. Full citations will be available in the comments.

The Facts Laid Out

Children/Teen Suicide Related to School Calendar.

During weeks when school was in session, the number of pediatric emergency mental health visits for danger to self or others was more than twice as high compared to non-school weeks. The same research also found a continuous increase in the rate of psychiatric emergencies during school weeks, but not during vacation weeks, over the 4-year period of the study [i]. The rate of hospitalization of school-aged children for suicidal idealization and attempts increased dramatically—by nearly 300%--over the seven years of their study, from 2008 to 2015, and each year the rate of such hospitalizations was significantly higher in the school months than in the summer [i].

What the Students are Saying.

A large survey conducted a few years ago by the A.P.A revealed that teenagers are the most stressed, anxious people in America; that 83% of them cite school as a cause of their stress; and that, during the school year, 27% of them reported experiencing “extreme stress” compared to 13% reporting that during the summer [i].

A Gallup poll finds that only 44 percent of high school students feel engaged at school [i].

What's Bad Internally About Schools?

Results indicated that middle grade school math teachers, in comparison to sixth-grade elementary school teachers, control students more, provide them fewer decision-making opportunities, and feel less efficacious. Many of these changes related to declines observed in students' motivation in middle school [i].

The results mentioned directly above are especially concerning because each is negatively correlated to school connectivity, and according to evidence school connectedness predicts depressive symptoms 1 year later for both boys and girls, anxiety symptoms for girls, and general functioning for boys. It also predicts the probability of substance use and criminality [i].

Children, especially teenagers, are less happy in school than in any other setting where they regularly find themselves and that increased schooling, coupled with decreased freedom outside of school, correlates, over decades, with sharply increased rates of psychiatric disorders in young people, including major depression and anxiety disorders [i].

Standardized Testing | Beyond Forgivable.

Parents, teachers, administrators, school and private mental health professionals report extremely negative effects including but not limited too:

nausea, dizziness, crying, vomiting, panic attacks, tantrums, headaches, loss of bowel or bladder control, near-fainting, sleeplessness, refusal to go to school, “freaking out,” meltdowns, depression, suicide threats and suicide attempts. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

• Many child mental health professionals have called the misuse/overuse of standardized tests “child abuse." [i]

• Prolonged stress can profoundly undermine learning, mental health and brain development in young people. [i]

• When test anxiety reduces students' test scores, it becomes a factor that could threaten the relevance of any conclusions about academic progress.