Teachers report spending an increasing amount of time needing to support students’ and families’ mental health, per a new RAND study, and it’s seriously burning them out. In large part, this problem is unintentionally self-induced by the education system, which has increasingly taken on more the responsibilities of the mental health system. Schools and educators have been misled to think mental health programs would improve education outcomes at scale, and that “good mental health” is necessary for students to learn (even though students had been learning at schools for forever before the rise of mental health). The mental health programs that are marketed to schools as good for education are are explicitly teaching students and teachers alike to think about mental health more, talk about mental health more, and encourage seeking support for mental health. That explicitly takes time away from education: it’s a mechanical, unavoidable effect. Doing all this has not improved education outcomes or mental outcome. Growing evidence shows it can be harmful and make kids feel worse. It’s often NOT the best thing to think or talk about how one feels, and instead get past the momentary/transitory feelings of stress, anxiety, discomfort, etc. EdWeek writes that “in most schools, counselors and psychologists juggle up to twice the recommended ratio of students—leaving teachers to pick up the slack for students waiting for additional help.” That gives the impression that what’s necessary is more counselors and school psychologists. This is another way the education system has been misled. Recommended ratios come from professional associations that have an incentive to say there’s a need more of their members—they’re not based on empirical evidence. And more school mental health staff would perpetuate the cycle: more responsibility for mental health taken on by the education system, leads to more time spent on it, leads to more investment, leads to more time spent, etc. edweek.org/leadership/dealin… edweek.org/leadership/dealin…

This is incredibly useful because a constant refrain from many mental health industry advocates, who are constantly pushing their services toward younger and younger kids, is that “half of all mental health conditions develop by the age of 14.” That is totally misleading. Because (1) it’s not true, (2) the younger-age diagnoses are generally more mild conditions and forms of conditions that don’t necessarily improve with or require treatment—not the serious nor functionally impairing mental illnesses, and (3) its suggests that efforts to prevent mental illness “upstream” work, when they’re really WILDLY limited: we don’t know the causes of mental illnesses so we can’t prevent them. We’ve been pumping kids full of therapy speak, therapy itself, and pills. None of it is going to prevent mental illnesses from developing among those who will go on to develop one, and for the vast majority who will never go on to develop of a serious mental illness—statistically, between ~94-96% of kids—they’re being exposed unnecessarily to treatments and interventions that could put them at greater risk of harm than potential benefit. And since so much of youth mental health care is low-quality and doesn’t meet best clinical practices, kids are even more exposed to potential harm than they’d be otherwise. Mental healthcare is important and can be useful. But youth mental healthcare should be pursued/ delivered judiciously and thoughtfully.

A 2025 NYC comptroller report estimates the city spends $1.2 billion ANNUALLY on salaries+fringe benefits for 7,300+ school-based mental health workers (school counselors, social workers, and school psychologists). That’s nearly 10% of the teacher workforce. But there’s still supposedly a “mental health workforce shortage” in schools. Schools have become mental health clinics, not institutions of education. comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/…

Universal mental health screening is happening in a large swath of public schools nationwide. But it does not improve mental health or academic outcomes—but it CAN be harmful to students.

🚩Many school districts with universal mental-health screening programs are likely in violation of federal laws protecting student privacy and parental rights. New guidance from @usedgov warns that violations implicate federal funding. ED interprets any school-administered survey, evaluation, or analysis concerning a protected category under PPRA--including a student's or family's mental or psychological problems--as effectively being a required survey because students may feel compelled to participate when a school staff member administers it. Schools therefore must let parents inspect the survey/assessment/screening instrument and obtain affirmative written consent before a minor participates. Notifying parents and allowing them to opt out is NOT sufficient. The Department's position is clear: it regards most psychological or emotional screening questions as PPRA-protected. If compliance is not met, federal funding is at risk. Many schools may be in violation. A nationally representative survey by Education Week Research Center from 2023 suggests 71% of school and district leaders whose district screens students had an OPT-OUT model. ED is right to clarify what is required for compliance with PPRA and FERPA. These are long-standing protections for students. And mental health initiatives in schools, including screening, are operating under legal and regulatory conflict: the education system and the behavioral health system are regulated by different laws and requirements that are not always reconcilable. ‼️For states that want to ensure compliance with federal law, model legislation prepared by me and @ALegalProcess in this issue brief would do so. ED is doing right by students, parents, and school staff--including school mental health professionals. Universal mental health screening in schools is, firstly, harmful, and the ambiguity of responsibilities among parties leaves kids worse off. More to come from me and @ALegalProcess shortly. manhattan.institute/article/…

Spending on student support services (SSS) has increased more than three times as fast as spending on classroom instruction, per analysis by @ALegalProcess SSS includes staff who support students *outside* of direct classroom instruction: school counselors, social workers, psychologists, nurse/health services, attendance, and speech pathology/audiology. All these services are meant to facilitate education *inside* the classroom, so it's reasonable to expect teachers' time spent on keeping order would go down, and time spent on instruction would go up. We're seeing the opposite. Teachers are now spending more time keeping order in class than six years ago. It's worth asking why without assuming what "works" or doesn't. One thing to consider is how well SSS, as currently delivered, is actually aligned with it's goal of facilitating education in the classroom. How much, and in what way, do these services impact classroom instruction? Consider school nurses. Few would argue that kids should have access to a nurse somewhere in their life. Without explicitly defining the expectation for how a nurse will effect education--specifically education, not health--there's no way to know the best way for schools, versus doctor's offices or anywhere else, to deploy nurses (where, when, how many) or how to balance nurses with competing services a school could provide, like counselors, social workers, etc. The question is HOW the services work, not just IF. A nurse can dispense medication for a medical condition, allowing a child to be in school who'd otherwise need a parent or doctor's office. That facilitates education by allowing more class time. A nurse can also have sick beds. A student feels nauseous because they're nervous to be called on in class. They're genuinely nauseous, not faking it, but nurse availability here has opposite effect of facilitating education even if it's good for the child's health; it's removing the child from the class. Those effects have to be balanced. A child might warrant a lot of services. Meds for a medical condition dispensed by the nurse; they live with an abusive parent and a social worker is involved; they're malnourished and get breakfast and lunch from the school; they're struggling with distress we'd expect of his situation and checks in with a counselor. All of those things can be good for the child while still not benefiting their education, specifically. That's fine! Not every service can be every solution! But the wrong balance of SSS crowds out time in classrooms and on instruction. It is, literally, crowding out spending on classroom instruction. The student who needs all those other services also needs reading and learning services because no one is teaching him or reading with him at home. And the school is the only system meant to provide that. Delivering all these services at school also sends a message to kids that those services are important enough for a school to do INSTEAD of education. We as adults can say "but it's for the PURPOSE of education!" until we're blue in the face. But what kids see is that the school, meant to educate, is doing these other things, too. So education can't be THAT important. SSS sends a message to teachers, too. That they might not be the person responsible or capable of addressing certain issues. The cynic might see a teacher who sends an unruly student to the counselor and think the teacher just doesn't want to deal with it. But support services *explicitly exist* to have other professionals do things instead of having teachers do them. Otherwise we'd simply hire more teachers. The ambiguity is the challenge. How much should teachers deal with behavior? How much should nurses? How much should counselors? Do all these professionals know how much the others think they should be doing? What about students? Do students know who they should go to for a given problem versus someone else? Do parents know? Does the principal or school administrator? By delivering health and mental health and social work services through the education system, versus through the health, mental health, and social services systems, respectively, it's far less clear who's responsible for what. And that reduces accountability on every system to do what they can do best for the child.