With teachers facing threats, increasing acts of school violence and students being restrained at least 2,300 times per school day, CCHR says $2.7B in mental health funding to schools has failed.
By Jan Eastgate
President CCHR International
June 28, 2024
The billions of dollars funneled into mental health programs in schools have failed to prevent or check violence, which is a critical wake-up call. Despite these investments, school shootings and related deaths have continued to rise over five years, according to the report, “An Examination of US School Mass Shootings, 2017–2022.”[1] Federal data indicates that students are restrained and secluded an average of 2,300 times per school day, potentially endangering over 100,000 children.[2] Tragically, many fatalities, particularly those involving prone restraints, could have been avoided with proper bans.[3] CCHR emphasizes that with psychological outcomes overshadowing academic achievement, reading scores have also plummeted to their lowest levels in years.[4]
There is an urgent need for legislative action to address these ongoing issues. Although substantial efforts have been attempted, the acts of violence in schools against teachers and between students remain dire.
A federal bill, Keeping All Students Safe Act, introduced in 2021 and again in May 2023, has yet to pass, yet it would prohibit and prevent the use in schools of seclusion, mechanical restraint, chemical restraint, and dangerous restraints that restrict breathing.[5] New York approved regulations in 2023 prohibiting school staff from restraining a student face down—prone restraints—or leaving a student secluded in a room that they cannot leave.[6] In June 2024, California state Senator Dave Cortese’s Senate Bill 483, “Pupil Rights – Prohibition of Prone Restraint” passed through the Assembly Education Committee to eliminate the use of prone restraints in California schools. This followed the death in 2018 of Max Benson, a 13-year-old autistic student, after being restrained face down in a prone position for over an hour in a now-closed school. Involuntary manslaughter charges were filed against three staff and the company that owns the school.[7]
CT Insider reports that these practices “cause hundreds, if not thousands, of injuries to students each year, and, experts say, an untold number of children suffer lasting emotional trauma.”[8] The Wisconsin Examiner equated the school restraint practices in Wisconsin to “torture” after schools reported almost 6,000 seclusion and 7,000 restraint incidents in 2021-22.[9]
In June this year, a Massachusetts mother filed a lawsuit against her son’s former school district and several of its employees for allegedly “brutally and impermissibly” restraining her 8-year-old son. Employees allegedly restrained the child multiple times and, on those occasions, according to the lawsuit, they “forcibly grasped his wrists,” “dragged (him) down school hallways,” and, on at least one occasion, “encircled (M.W.) … with a large gym mat so that he was forcibly trapped” and pushed to “transport” him, leaving him “isolated … in empty rooms.”[10]
CCHR has tracked the education system for more than 30 years, first detailing decades of already worsening conditions in its 1995 report, Psychiatry: Education’s Ruin. With the billions of dollars that have been invested in students’ mental health and to prevent violence, the outcome has been nothing short of catastrophic. The violence continues unabated, accompanied by failing educational scores.
Funding to school “mental health” is a bottomless pit, without accountability. The U.S. budget for 2020 included $133 million for school violence prevention efforts, including Mental Health First Aid training within schools for school personnel to “better recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness in students.”[11] In 2022, $160 billion was allocated for the mental health needs of students.[12] That same year, the U.S. Department of Education announced a $280 million investment to increase access to mental health services for students.[13] Health & Human Services allocated $25 million to expand school mental health clinics.[14]
In 2023, the President’s “Mental Health Strategy” allocated $188 million to hire 5,400 school-based mental health professionals and train an estimated 5,500 more to build a pipeline to mental health providers in schools.[15]
On June 17, 2024, just two weeks before the anniversary of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, an additional $1 billion was allocated for youth mental health in schools. This funding will support the training and hiring of 14,000 new full-time mental health professionals, bringing the total number to 19,400—or a 253% increase.[16]
In contrast, between 2018 and 2023, the number of teachers in public and private elementary and secondary schools nationwide increased from 3,170,000 to 3,181,000, representing a mere 0.34% growth.[17]
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average teacher pay in 2021-2022 was $66,397.[18] Whereas, the average school psychologist’s salary is $78,431.[19] This is 18% greater than the average for teachers. The average child psychiatrist’s annual income is $249,711—276% or nearly 4 times greater than that for a teacher.[20]
Teachers have the pivotal role of enabling students to gain knowledge in order to use this to become productive citizens. As such, investing in teachers should be the overriding priority, and not have this usurped by classes turned into behavior modification clinics.
Teachers are trained in Mental Health First Aid, developed in Australia and adopted in the U.S. where it was federally funded first in 2014 with a $50 million grant from the President.[21] Patrick Hahn, Affiliate Professor of Biology at Loyola University Maryland, says the program is geared toward pushing more young people toward more psychiatric drugs.[22]
Some 8,000 teachers, administrators and school staff have already been trained in it in California alone.[23]
Add to that, students are screened for mental disorders, assessed and subjected to “Social Emotional Learning” (SEL), despite, as the American Enterprise Institute says, “its ideas and techniques borrowed from popular psychology” mask the true nature of the program.[24] Classes can include: “mindfulness,” “visualization to release stress,” “name the emotion you are bringing to class,” and “write down, rip up and throw away your stress.”[25] From November 2019 to April 2021, SEL spending grew by 45% to $765 million.[26]
Yet, 10% of K–12 public school teachers report that they have been physically assaulted or attacked by a student.[27]
Today, 70% of children in the U.S. who have sought and received mental health “support” did so through schools.[28] The consumption of psychiatric drugs by children in the world is already highest in the U.S.[29] The IQVia Total Patient Tracker Database for the Year 2020 reports that more than 6.1 million children and teens ages 0-17 were taking psychiatric drugs, of which 2,652,554 were in the 6-12 age group and 3,188,966 ages 13-17.[30]
Many of these drugs are documented to induce violent behavior as covered in CCHR’s report, Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide: School Shootings and Other Acts of Senseless Violence. The report provides information on more than 30 studies that link antidepressants, antipsychotics, psychostimulants, mood stabilizers, and sedative-hypnotics to adverse effects that include hostility, mania, aggression, self-harm, suicide, and homicidal thoughts.[31]
According to a 2022 National Institute of Justice (NIJ) article detailing the findings from a new database on mass shootings in the United States, The Violence Project database, funded by the Department of Justice, found that 23% of the mass shooters had been on psychiatric drugs.[32] The percentage could be higher considering the researchers who compiled the database did not have full access to all of the perpetrators’ toxicology and medical records (not always publicly released), only whatever information was publicly available.[33]
During the 2021-22 school year, 66% of students seeking mental health services were referred to external mental health services.[34] This forces schools to become a feeder line to an already profit-driven mental health industry, including involuntary psychiatric hospitalization.
Data shows children who are committed under Florida’s Baker (involuntary commitment) Act, for example, often are referred by school officials.[35] Florida involuntarily examines and commits children “at a rate much higher than any other state in the country,” according to a 2023 report from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. More than 34,000 kids under 18 were seized and held in psychiatric wards in the fiscal year 2021-2022. The report noted that in many cases children are harmed by the process – and their parents are stuck with thousands of dollars of bills from treatment they never sought or authorized.[36]
At least 35 U.S. states have some form of “Baker Act” or similar commitment process.[37]
Health News Florida reported, “Fear of school shootings and increased pressure to regulate student behavior mean one bad joke can plunge a child, and their family, into the state’s mental health system.”[38]
But no one is looking at the elephant in the room: the very mental health screenings, programs and drugs students are subjected to could be the major contributing factor in shootings, acts of senseless violence and violent behavior.
Once institutionalized, children remain vulnerable again to the dangers of deadly restraints, as neither state nor federal governments have yet implemented a comprehensive ban on the practice.
CCHR advocates for critical legislative measures to address this issue, emphasizing the urgent need for the passage of the federal Keeping Children Safe Act and the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, which aims to protect children in institutional settings and could lead to the prohibition of abusive, coercive practices.
[1] “An Examination of US School Mass Shootings, 2017–2022: Findings and Implications,” Adv Neurodev Disord., 2023, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9388351/
[2] “Murphy Reintroduces Legislation to Protect Students from Dangerous Seclusion and Restraint Practices,” Christ Murphy, 18 May 2023, https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-reintroduces-legislation-to-protect-students-from-dangerous-seclusion-and-restraint-practices
[3] Taylor Johnston, et al., “‘He didn’t deserve that’: Remembering young people who’ve died from restraint and seclusion,” CT Insider, 31 Oct. 2022, https://www.ctinsider.com/projects/2022/child-deaths-school-restraint-seclusion/
[4] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/10/28/cchr-launches-investigation-into-educational-decline/, citing: “America’s reading problem: Scores were dropping even before the pandemic,” Dallas Morning News, 10 Nov. 2021, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2021/11/10/americas-reading-problem-scores-were-dropping-even-before-the-pandemi
[5] “H.R. 3474 (117th): Keeping All Students Safe Act,” Govtrack.us, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3474; “Murphy Reintroduces Legislation to Protect Students from Dangerous Seclusion and Restraint Practices,” Chris Murphy, 18 May 2023, https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-reintroduces-legislation-to-protect-students-from-dangerous-seclusion-and-restraint-practices; https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1750
[6] “New York approves new rules banning seclusion, restraint of students in schools across the state,” SiLive.com, 18 July 2023, https://www.silive.com/education/2023/07/new-york-approves-new-rules-banning-seclusion-restraint-of-students-in-schools-across-the-state.html
[7] https://sd15.senate.ca.gov/news/senator-cortese-celebrates-advancement-four-crucial-bills-standing-california-students; “Case advances against El Dorado Hills school staff in death of child with autism,” KCRA 3, 22 July 2022, https://www.kcra.com/article/case-advances-against-el-dorado-hills-school-staff-in-death-of-child-with-autism/40692074
[8] Taylor Johnston, et al., “‘He didn’t deserve that’: Remembering young people who’ve died from restraint and seclusion,” CT Insider, 31 Oct. 2022, https://www.ctinsider.com/projects/2022/child-deaths-school-restraint-seclusion/
[9] Baylor Spears, “‘Districts should not torture children’: Seclusion and restraint in Wisconsin schools,” Wisconsin Examiner, 18 Mar. 2024, https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/03/18/seclusion-and-restraint-use-in-wisconsin-schools-whats-being-done-about-it/
[10] Chandelis Duster and Nia Mclean, CNN, “Massachusetts family sues school district, employees after a third grader was restrained multiple times,” News 8, 21 June 2024, https://www.news8000.com/news/national-world/massachusetts-family-sues-school-district-employees-after-a-third-grader-was-restrained-multiple-times/article_590b342b-f8d8-518c-b2b4-50929b9f03a4.html
[11]“President Trump Releases FY 2020 Budget Proposal,” 15 Mar. 2019, https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/president-trump-releases-fy-2020-budget-proposal
[12] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/01/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-announce-strategy-to-address-our-national-mental-health-crisis-as-part-of-unity-agenda-in-his-first-state-of-the-union/
[13] U.S. Dept. of Education, “Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Funds to Increase the Number of School-Based Mental Health Providers in Schools Provided Through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” 3 Oct. 2022, https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/hundreds-millions-dollars-funds-increase-number-school-based-mental-health-providers-schools-provided-through-bipartisan-safer-communities-act
[14] https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2022/05/03/hhs-awards-nearly-25-million-expand-access-school-based-health-services.html
[15] https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-more-188-million-bipartisan-safer-communities-act-support-mental-health-and-student-wellness
[16] https://www.mymotherlode.com/news/local/3376374/biden-gun-violence-prevention.html
[17] https://www.statista.com/statistics/185012/number-of-teachers-in-elementary-and-secondary-schools-since-1955/
[18] https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/average-teacher-salary-and-statistics/
[19] https://www.zippia.com/salaries/school-psychologist/#
[20] https://www.zippia.com/salaries/child-psychiatrist/#
[21] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/marvin-ross/mental-health-first-aid_b_4310195.html
[22] “Drug companies prey on children,” The Baltimore Sun, 25 Dec. 2016, https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-youth-overmedication-20161225-story.html
[23] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/with-students-in-turmoil-u-s-teachers-train-in-mental-health
[24] https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-unexamined-rise-of-therapeutic-education-how-social-emotional-learning-extends-k-12-educations-reach-into-students-lives-and-expands-teachers-roles/
[25] https://www.edutopia.org/article/13-powerful-sel-activities-emelina-minero
[26] Max Eden, “The Trouble with Social Emotional Learning Four major concerns regarding a burgeoning education industry,” 6 April 2022, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP07/20220406/114597/HHRG-117-AP07-Wstate-EdenM-20220406.pdf
[27] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-many-teachers-have-been-assaulted-by-students-or-parents-we-asked-educators/2022/08
[28] “The Benefits of Mental Health Programs in Schools,” US News, 15 Nov. 2022, https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/the-benefits-of-mental-health-programs-in-schools
[29] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202108/are-children-and-adolescents-overprescribed
[30] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/children-on-psychiatric-drugs/
[31] https://www.cchrint.org/issues/psychiatric-drugs-create-violence-suicide/
[32] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/06/13/23-percent-mass-shooters-on-psychiatric-drugs/, citing: Sharon Shahid and Megan Duzor, “VOA SPECIAL REPORT: HISTORY OF MASS SHOOTERS,” VOA News, 1 June 2021, https://projects.voanews.com/mass-shootings/
[33]https://www.cchrint.org/2023/06/13/23-percent-mass-shooters-on-psychiatric-drugs/#_edn2; “Mass Shooter Database,” The Violence Project, https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/; “Methodology,” The Violence Project, https://www.theviolenceproject.org/methodology/
[34] “Roughly Half of Public Schools Report That They Can Effectively Provide Mental Health Services to All Students in Need,” National Center for Education Statistics, 31 May 2022, https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/05_31_2022_2.asp
[35] https://health.wusf.usf.edu/health-news-florida/2020-12-16/committed-schools-kids-and-the-baker-act-pipeline
[36] Josh McGhee, “Florida’s Baker Act Has Seized Kids & Adults for Forced Mental Health Holds Almost 2 Million Times in Past Decade. Are Advocates Finally Forcing Change?” MindSite News, 15 Aug. 2023, https://mindsitenews.org/2023/08/15/floridas-baker-act-has-seized-kids-adults-for-forced-mental-health-holds-almost-2-million-times-in-past-decade-are-advocates-finally-forcing-change/
[37] https://www.ambrosiatc.com/baker-act/
[38] https://health.wusf.usf.edu/health-news-florida/2020-12-16/committed-schools-kids-and-the-baker-act-pipeline
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