“The modern education system is probably the single biggest threat to the mental health of children,” Eli Stark-Elster writes in a viral Substack essay. “At the very least, the evidence for its negative effects is unambiguous.” For example:
In March 2020, COVID was born, and students were removed from school. Generally, we view COVID as an absolute scourge upon the mental health of young people. But when children stopped going to school, something interesting happened. Their suicide rates plummeted and remained low throughout the summer. In the fall—when most schools returned to in-person instruction—they started killing themselves again.
For adults aged 19-25, the resumption of in-person school had no effect on suicide rates. For teenagers, though, it’s a different story.
This data on the effects of COVID—or rather, the effects of escaping and then returning to school— is incredibly telling. The reported shifts appear specifically for adolescents who returned to school, not for their peers who remained at home during the same period. It is causation, not correlation.
But the correlations are interesting too. For decades, researchers have noted the calendar effects on child suicide and mental health visits. From 1990-2019, suicide rates among young people have always dropped precipitously during the summers and spiked again in September. Adults show no such trend.
For English students, stress-related presentations in emergency rooms also rise during school periods and drop during holidays. This is true for both girls and boys across four years of data.
In short, he writes, “school sucks so much that it reliably makes students want to hide at home, visit the ER, and take their own lives. The data has been completely clear on these points for years.”
