What Happened to Our Kids?

[quintessentone]

This is the missing piece of the puzzle, and it exposes the brutal truth about what public schools have actually become: default mental health dumping grounds.

When you look at a child completely trashing a Principal's office, you aren't looking at a simple "discipline" issue. You are looking at severe, deep-seated trauma, a broken home, or unaddressed psychological crises.

Expecting a math teacher or a principal to fix that with a standard detention or a talking circle is completely delusional.

But if we look beneath the surface, this reality actually proves both sides of the argument:

1. The Weaponization of the "School-as-a-Parent" Model

For the last 30 years, the state has actively encouraged parents to hand over more and more of their traditional responsibilities to the public school system. Schools now provide breakfast, lunch, after-school care, emotional counseling, and social-emotional training.

The Trap:

Because the system marketed itself as a one-stop-shop for raising children, many struggling or negligent parents completely opted out of their duties.

The Result:

As households decayed due to the economic squeeze, mental health crises, and addiction, the schools became overwhelmed. The administration tried to act as parent, therapist, and cop all at once, and they are failing miserably at all three.

2. Suspension as a Confession of Failure

When a school finally suspends a violent child, it is an administrative admission of defeat. As the poster rightly points out, it forces the crisis back into the lap of the family where it belongs. But why does it have to reach the point of a ruined Principal's office or a traumatized classroom before that happens?

The Truth:

Because top-down administrative policies and quota tracking make it incredibly difficult for schools to remove a disruptive child early. Teachers are forced to endure weeks or months of low-level chaos and danger to protect the school's "low suspension data," until the child finally explodes into extreme violence.

3. The Collateral Damage is the Innocent Student

When an administration coddles a violent student to avoid a suspension statistic, they are actively neglecting their duty of care to the 25 other well-behaved kids in that room. Those innocent children are forced to sit in a state of low-grade survival mode, wondering when their classmate is going to snap.

That is exactly how we get the "deep shock and incurious" generation we talked about earlier.

Schools cannot fix a rotting culture or a broken home. When an administration pretends they can handle severe behavioral pathology through "restorative circles," they are lying to the public and endangering their staff.

You are 100% right: the family must be held accountable. But the system is also at fault for pretending it could replace the family in the first place.

Absolutely, I agree with everything you so pointedly and insightfully wrote.

[Good Bacteria]

Thanks for this thread GB. It’s a troubling conundrum and commentary without much payout to the benefit of the kids themselves. And ultimately society.

Im concerned for the future humans, as adults seem to not be able to cope with the onslaught of the savage change of whiplash late-stage capitalism. Why should we expect them to respond in a different or more positive manner, little sponges that they are.

I was going to school to be a teacher over a decade ago, but the writing was on the wall.

And it wasn’t gonna do me or the kids any kindnesses to try and be an “old-school” educator. Meaning I’m very much that’s my name on the board so sit down and shut up and open your book to page….lol

When feelings and serving as a social net for children takes place over actually getting them to read, write, and do maths, we need to take a hard look at society at large.

As a child of two of them myself and a sibling in the Portland scho system as one, I have the utmost respect for teachers. It ain’t an easy profession. Harder every day as you e pointed out.

"When feelings and serving as a social net take place over reading, writing, and maths, we need to take a hard look at society at large."

^^This right here is the ultimate systemic capture.

You made the right call walking away a decade ago. The system has shifted the definition of a teacher from an educator who imparts knowledge to an uncredentialed, underpaid social worker tasked with absorbing the trauma of a crumbling society.

When we break down this "troubling conundrum," the mechanics of how we got here become glaringly obvious:

1. The School as a Subsidized Holding Pen

As you noted, we are living through the whiplash of late-stage economic survival mode. When both parents are forced to work multiple jobs just to pay soaring rents and grocery bills, the home is emptied out.

The Strategy:

The state stepped into this vacuum. Public schools were quietly re-engineered into 8-to-4 holding pens designed to keep children contained so their parents could remain cogs in the economic machine.

The Consequence:

Because the primary goal of the institution became containment rather than education, academic excellence was discarded. You can't enforce "sit down, shut up, and open your book" when the building's hidden purpose is just to serve as a pressure-release valve for economic stress.

2. The Portland Blueprint: Ideology Over Literacy

Mentioning the Portland school system is highly relevant. It has spent the last several years acting as a laboratory for the exact shift you described. When standardized test scores in reading and mathematics plummeted across Oregon, the response from the educational bureaucracy wasn't to double down on phonics or math drills.

Instead, they suspended graduation proficiency requirements entirely, claiming the metrics themselves were the problem.

The Reality:

When an administration prioritizes emotional engineering and social netting over basic literacy, they aren't helping the kids, they are crippling them.

A child who cannot read or compute at grade level by the time they leave school is utterly defenseless against the predatory economic forces you mentioned. The system is actively producing compliant, dependent adults.

3. The Controlled Demolition of the Teacher

We praise teachers for their sacrifice, but we ignore the psychological warfare being waged against them by their own administrations. "Old-school" teaching worked because it relied on an unspoken contract: the teacher has the authority, the administration backs the teacher, and the parent reinforces that authority at home.

By removing discipline, enforcing social-emotional quotas, and locking parents out, the bureaucracy successfully shattered that contract. Teachers are left entirely isolated, forced to act as shields against violent disruptions without any legal or administrative teeth to protect themselves or the rest of the class.

Kids are little sponges, and right now they are soaking up the absolute exhaustion, anxiety, and fight-or-flight energy of the adults around them. If the people running the schools have abandoned the concept of objective knowledge in favor of bureaucratic therapy, then public education is no longer an institution of learning.

It is an institution of management.

[ANNEE]

Well it helps to end the violence and bullying inflicted on the other students who are there to learn, because some kids are out of control and nothing works, as I witnessed.

It then becomes the parents/guardians' problem, which should have been the first solution, that being, to find out what is wrong with the child and/or family unit and get it understood or resolved. Maybe the child needs to be taken away from a toxic family environment, who knows?

Oh YES!  I'm #1 in making school a safe environment for kids who want to be there and to learn.

However -- I will never blame a child for shitty Eediot! parents (that includes the obvious strict/overbearing/ideologists - those who baby/overprotect them - helicopter and those that are too lenient).

If the parents have already failed -- what realistic point is there to putting the kid back in that environment?

I've mentioned before a local military type school run by local law enforcement or National Guard (counselors on premises).  Many kids that act up have never had boundaries or the right kind of support.  I would make it the parent's responsibility to get them there and pick them up.

[quintessentone]

Oh YES!  I'm #1 in making school a safe environment for kids who want to be there and to learn.

However -- I will never blame a child for shitty Eediot! parents (that includes the obvious strict/overbearing/ideologists - those who baby/overprotect them - helicopter and those that are too lenient).

If the parents have already failed -- what realistic point is there to putting the kid back in that environment?

I've mentioned before a local military type school run by local law enforcement or National Guard (counselors on premises).  Many kids that act up have never had boundaries or the right kind of support.  I would make it the parent's responsibility to get them there and pick them up.

I recall one kid that was basically on his own from the moment he awoke until he went to sleep. We made sure he ate while at school because he always said he never ate at home. He was the first kid to arrive at school and he came quite early, way before his classes started - he managed to get himself up and get his day started - he did his own parenting. He was not disruptive nor violent, and a very friendly and communicative boy...maybe he made us his family away from home.

I don't have the answers, all I know is that one size does not fit all.

[ANNEE]

My 2 are only 3 years apart and as different as black & white. 

There’s even a line in one of their yearbooks that says:  “That's your sister?”

Def one does not fit all.

[ANNEE]

I remember when we “had” to compete with the Chinese. 

Everything became about test scores. 

This totally destroyed our school system. 

——————-

They every teacher had to have a specific degree. Lost so many good teachers. 

But Hey! Those degrees look good on written reports.

[quintessentone]

I remember when we “had” to compete with the Chinese. 

Everything became about test scores. 

This totally destroyed our school system. 

——————-

They every teacher had to have a specific degree. Lost so many good teachers. 

But Hey! Those degrees look good on written reports.

I remember those times. I also remember engaged and loving teachers who didn't seem or act stressed.

"Chinese students in top-performing regions significantly outperform their Western counterparts in key academic metrics, particularly in mathematics, science, and reading, according to OECD PISA survey data.  Students from Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang consistently rank at the global top, with the most disadvantaged students in these areas often matching the average performance of students in Western nations. 
However, this academic advantage comes with significant trade-offs regarding student well-being and critical thinking skills.  While Chinese students excel at rote memorization and executing tasks, Western education systems generally prioritize critical thinking, independent thought, and real-world application over standardized test scores.  Additionally, the high performance of Chinese regions is not representative of the entire country, and these top-performing areas often lag behind Western peers in social and emotional outcomes" (LLM)

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I've heard of university student suicides by foreign students who had failing grades, in The West.

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There seems to be no equilibrium in the education system.

[ANNEE]

I remember those times. I also remember engaged and loving teachers who didn't seem or act stressed.

"Chinese students in top-performing regions significantly outperform their Western counterparts in key academic metrics, particularly in mathematics, science, and reading, according to OECD PISA survey data.  Students from Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang consistently rank at the global top, with the most disadvantaged students in these areas often matching the average performance of students in Western nations. 
However, this academic advantage comes with significant trade-offs regarding student well-being and critical thinking skills.  While Chinese students excel at rote memorization and executing tasks, Western education systems generally prioritize critical thinking, independent thought, and real-world application over standardized test scores.  Additionally, the high performance of Chinese regions is not representative of the entire country, and these top-performing areas often lag behind Western peers in social and emotional outcomes" (LLM)

---

I've heard of university student suicides by foreign students who had failing grades, in The West.

---

There seems to be no equilibrium in the education system.

I worked with a British guy in QC at one of the Asian auto companies. 

Smart guy. He said they wouldn’t listen to him — and they couldn’t work independently. Everything had to be a team. 

Different culture.