CCHR: Urgent Wake-Up Call Needed on the Crisis in America's Education SystemWith 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 recent mental health funding to schools has failed.
By: Citizens Commission on Human Rights 
Wake-Up Call Needed on the Crisis in Education CCHR stresses the urgency of legislative action to address these ongoing issues. 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, chemical restraint, and dangerous restraints that restrict breathing. 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. 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. 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."[2] 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.[3] "With the billions of dollars that have been invested in students' mental health and to prevent violence, the poor outcome has been catastrophic,'" She says 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."[5] In 2023, $188 million was allocated 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.[9] On June 17, 2024, 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 259% increase.[10] 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.[11] According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average teacher pay in 2021-2022 was $66,397. Whereas the average school psychologist's salary is $78,431. This is 18% greater than the average for teachers. The average child psychiatrist's annual income is $249,711—276% Eastgate says, "Investing in teachers should be the overriding priority, and not have this usurped by classes being turned into behavioral clinics." 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.[12] Yet, 10% of K–12 public school teachers report that they have been physically assaulted or attacked by a student.[15] Today, 70% of children in the U.S. who have sought and received mental health "support" did so through schools.[16] These drugs are documented to induce violent behavior. CCHR's report, Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide: School Shootings and Other Acts of Senseless Violence includes 30 studies that link psychotropic drugs to hostility, mania, aggression, self-harm, suicide, and homicidal thoughts. During the 2021-22 school year, 66% of students seeking mental health services were referred to external mental health services.[18] Data shows children who are committed under Florida's involuntary commitment Baker Act, for example, often are referred by school officials. 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." Once institutionalized, children are at risk of more 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. About CCHR: It was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and eminent professor of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz. Responsible for helping achieve hundreds of laws to protect individuals, this includes the federal Prohibition of Mandatory Medication Amendment banning the practice of children being forced to take psychiatric drugs as a requisite for their education. [1] www.murphy.senate.gov/ [2] www.ctinsider.com/ [3] wisconsinexaminer.com/ [4] www.dallasnews.com/ [5] www.thenationalcouncil.org/ [6] www.whitehouse.gov/ [7] www.ed.gov/news/ [8] www.hhs.gov/ [9] www.ed.gov/news/ [10] www.mymotherlode.com/ [11] www.statista.com/ [12] www.aei.org/ [13] www.edutopia.org/ [14] docs.house.gov/ [15] www.edweek.org/ [16] www.usnews.com/ [17] www.cchrint.org/ [18] nces.ed.gov/ End
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