Public Schools Face Dramatic Rise in Student Misbehavior | RealClearEducation

The annual School Pulse Panel, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education s Institute for Education Sciences (IES), revealed some troubling trends:

• More than 80% of public schools reported stunted behavioral and socioemotional development among students because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Schools also saw a 56% increase in classroom disruptions from student misconduct and a 49% increase in rowdiness outside of the classroom.  
• Seven in 10 public schools reported increases in students seeking mental health services since the start of the pandemic. 

Many of the problems reported in the survey were preexisting, even if exacerbated by pandemic policies. For example, the demand for social and mental health services was already trending upward well before COVID-19. 

via www.realcleareducation.com

Remember, this was all worthwhile because otherwise the careers of our top virologists would have languished. Would you have liked that? Would that have not have made you sad? Sometimes you have to break a few eggs so you can get that scientific, making the world so much better, sort of omelet. Now we know. It *is* possible to pump up a little bat virus and make it really quite a lot more dangerous! And if it ever causes a pandemic like the one it just did cause, we’ll know how to fight it! — or at least we’ll know it’s not such a great idea to shut down schools, the economy, and everything in order to fight it. That turned out to be a somewhat gigantic mistake. But — no one knew that in the beginning. So, all things considered, we know enough now that it’s a good idea to spend a lot more money doing this clearly vital, public spirited, and generally a good idea, sort of research. Not immediately obvious, of course, but when you think about it deeply, as we do, clearly it is.