Letter #51. Common Core Is the Main Cause of Youth Mental Health Deterioration Since 2010.

Multiple lines of evidence indicate that Common Core increased dramatically the distress caused by schooling.

Dear Friends,

The graph just below depicts the suicide rates for teens, ages 15-19, from 1950-2020. Suicides, of course, are just the tip of the iceberg of mental suffering. I chose this index because other indices, such as measures of anxiety and depression, have changed in ways that make them not fully comparable over time. Nevertheless, such measures would show the same overall curve as depicted here. I use ages 15-19 only because that happens to be an age range used by the CDC in annual suicide reports. With younger kids the shape of the curve would be the same, but overall rates of suicide would be much less.

In previous letters, a few months ago, I presented evidence that:

• The huge rise in kids’ suffering between 1950 and 1990 resulted largely from social changes that gradually removed kids’ freedom to play and explore independently, in ways essential for both immediate happiness and development of long-term resilience (Letters D2 & D4—also see my J. Ped. article on this).

• The decline in suffering between 1990 and about 2010 resulted from computer and Internet developments that enabled new ways for kids to play, explore, and connect with peers independently of adult control. Adults had largely shut off free outdoor play and independent mobility by 1990, but now kids had another way (Letter D3).

• The sharp rise, again, in suffering beginning around 2010 resulted largely from changes in schooling, provoked by Common Core legislation, which made school less fun and more stressful for most kids than it had been before (Letters D5 and D8). 

Now, in this letter, my focus again is on the rise in suffering that began around 2010. A popular belief—but one not held by the majority of those who do research in this area—is that this rise in suffering came about because of the increased use of smartphones and social media by teens. In Letters D6, D7, and #45, I outlined the weaknesses of the smartphone/social media theory. Here, I turn again to the idea that schooling is a major cause of kids’ suffering and changes brought about by Common Core made school more noxious than it had been before.

As I explained in Letter #50, Common Core is a set of “standards” for each school grade, K-12, adopted by most U.S. states between 2010 and 2012 to meet federal mandates initiated by the No Child Left Behind Act (subsequently modified by the Every Student Succeeds Act). To receive federal funding, schools must demonstrate that they are following the Common Core curriculum and that students are improving from year to year on statewide standard academic tests. With Common Core, school districts, superintendents, individual schools, principals, and teachers are judged as succeeding or failing based on tests designed to measure, in students, a very narrow range of academic achievement.

Not surprisingly, this resulted in pressures on teachers to teach to the tests and on schools to eliminate or reduce much of what used to be fun or interesting. Recesses were shortened or abolished, lunch periods were made so short that there is barely time to gobble down lunch (see here), creative assignments such as writing poems and stories were curtailed, art and music classes were shortened or eliminated. This focus on such a narrow measure of “accountability” meant that teachers in many schools lost freedom to adapt their classes to meet directly perceived student needs and interests. One result, as I noted in Letter #50, is that many of the best teachers resigned.

Here, in summary form, is evidence that schooling is a major source of kids’ suffering and that changes since Common Core have increased that suffering.

Teens and their Parents Report School Pressure to Be the Main Source of Teens’ Distress, Especially Since Common Core.

The American Psychological Association conducts an annual survey called “Stress in America.” In most years they include only adults, but in 2009 and in 2013 they included teens ages 13-17. The percentage of teens reporting high levels of stress was higher in 2013 than in 2009. In fact, in 2013 teens ranked as the most stressed-out group in America. Moreover, and most relevant to the point I’m making here, in 2013 83% of teens cited school as a significant source of their stress. No other cause came close. In contrast, in 2009, 43% cited school as a significant source of their stress. Note that 2009 was before any states had adopted Common Core and 2013 was after most states had adopted it. This suggests that Common Core resulted in a doubling of the number of teens reporting school to be a major cause of their distress.

Other surveys conducted since the onset of Common Core have likewise revealed school pressure to be the largest cause of distress for teens. In a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center, 88% of teens, ages 13-17, cited “pressure to get good grades” as a source of their distress. This included 61% who said this caused a “lot of pressure” and 27% who said it caused “some pressure.”  No other potential source was cited nearly as often. The authors wrote: “Compared with getting good grades, about half as many say they feel a lot of pressure to look good (29%) and to fit in socially (28%). Roughly one-in-five say they face a lot of pressure to be involved in extracurricular activities and to be good at sports (21% each), while smaller shares say they feel a lot of pressure to help their family financially (13%), to participate in religious activities (8%), to be sexually active (8%), to drink alcohol (6%) or to use drugs (4%).”

In a survey of parents of teens, conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harvard School of Public Health, in 2013, 63% of parents who said their child had experienced “a lot of stress” cited school homework as the main cause of that stress.

Rates of Kids’ Suicides and Breakdowns Correlate with the School Calendar.

Research shows repeatedly that school-age students have psychological breakdowns—as assessed by suicides and emergency department visits for suicide attempts or suicide ideation—at much higher rates when school is in session than when it is not. For example, Carbone & colleagues (2019) found that rates of emergency hospital admissions for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were 50 to 60% higher during months when school was in session than during vacation months of June, July & August.

In another study, Kim et al. (2023) used a U.S. national database (Optum’s Clinformatics Data Mart) to determine rates of emergency admissions for suicidality for children (age 10-12) and adolescents (age 13-18) for each calendar month from 2016 to 2021. Overall, they found a roughly linear increase from year to year for both groups. More significant for our purposes, for both groups there was a sharp drop during the summer months. The graph in their Figure 2 (which I have reprinted below) shows that the rates in July were about half of the rates during the months of schooling. The data also show that in 2020 the rates dropped sharply in March, when schools closed for COVID and remained low through the rest of the spring and summer. Here is the graph:

Credit Kim et al., 2023

In examining the graph, above, it is noteworthy that, over the years of the study, the increase in emergency incidents during the peak months of the school year was steeper than the increase during the nadir summer months. In fact, there was almost no summer increase over those years while the school-year increase was rather steep.  The exception in 2021 may have been a follow-up effect of COVID.

In a Scientific American article, Tyler Black (2022) presented a graph showing the pattern of suicide rates per month for school-aged kids (age 8-17) compared to adults ages 18-30. The graph shows clearly that only school-aged kids, not people beyond school age, show the pattern of more suicides in school months than in the summer.

This article also summarizes data showing that during school months the suicide rate is much higher on school days (especially Monday through Thursday) than on weekends.

Educators Report Increased School Stress with the Onset of Common Core.

In a master’s degree thesis, Abigail Morford (2021) cites multiple studies in which teachers and other school personnel report that Common Core and the standardized testing accompanying it increased anxiety for students and school personnel. Included are the following:

Holloway, J., & Brass, J. (2018). Making accountable teachers: The terrors and pleasures of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 33(3), 361-382. These researchers analyzed teachers’ perspectives of standardized testing through interviews. They found that teachers felt intruded upon and anxious because they felt that the measure of their worth as teachers depended on students’ performance on the tests.

Bausell, S. B., & Glazier, J. A. (2018). New teacher socialization and the testing apparatus. Harvard Educational Review, 88(3), 308-333. These researchers analyzed transcripts from quarterly teacher discussion groups over six years, from 2009 to 2015. … They found as standardized testing began to become more a part of the public school system, the educators' discussions shifted from being focused on student needs to focus on accountability measures used to measure teacher effectiveness through Standard 6. As judgments of teachers’ effectiveness became centered exclusively on their students’ performance on standardized tests, the work environment became increasingly stressful.

Stauffer, S. D., & Mason, E. C. M. (2013). Addressing elementary school teachers’ professional stressors: Practical suggestions for schools and administrators. Educational Administration Quarterly, 49(5), 809-837. These researchers conducted interviews with 64 teachers on the topic of stress. They noted that upwards of 50% of teachers leave the profession within the first five years dues to stress. They found that “ninety-one percent attributed stress to political and educational structures,” including the required high-stakes testing. As one put it, “There is a feeling that teaching the students to take the test well is all important.” These researchers explain how teachers, feeling pressure from the consequences of standardized tests, are likely to experience stress, which leads to burnout, depressive symptoms, and potentially even leaving the profession.

Mitani, H. (2018). Principals’ working conditions, job stress, and turnover behaviors under NCLB accountability pressure. Educational Administration Quarterly, 54(5), 822-862. Principals as well as teachers feel pressured by NCLB accountability. Increased anxiety at the top of the school hierarchy affects the whole school.

Further Thoughts

When it comes to kids’ distress, public schooling is the elephant in the room that almost nobody wants to look at. For anyone who does look, the evidence is obvious. Schools are a huge cause of anxiety, depression, and suicide in our kids. As more people are realizing this, more are removing their kids from school for homeschooling or one or another kind of alternative schooling.

Most teachers seem to recognize the harm of Common Core but claim to be unable to do anything about it. They feel the only option they have, to avoid following the dictates, is to quit. But there is another option. They could strike. They could collectively take a stand that, for the sake of children’s mental health, they will not teach until the federally mandated state regulations are removed. Schools were not great places before No Child Left Behind and Common Core, but they have become far worse since. The mandates left teachers with less freedom to alter the curriculum in ways that meet the real needs of students in their classrooms and motivated administrators to remove those few things that used to be fun in school.

This Substack series is, in part, a forum for thoughtful discussion. I greatly value readers’ contributions, even when they disagree with me, and sometimes especially when they do. You will notice in reading comments on previous letters that everyone is polite. Your questions and thoughts will contribute to the value of this letter for me and other readers. If you have witnessed effects of NCLB or Common Core, good or bad, or relevant questions, I and others would like to hear about them.

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With respect and best wishes,

Peter

NOTE; To see my discussion related to comments on this post, click here.