Between the pandemic, screens, and a mental health crisis, students have been left behind.
At the beginning of the 2023 school year, a seventh-grade teacher uploaded what would become a viral TikTok touching on an all-too-common issue: A concerning number of his new school students are alarmingly stalled at an elementary school level.
“I teach seventh grade. [My students] are still performing on a fourth grade level,” this educator says. And no matter how poorly students perform, he insists, they’re still being moved up to the next grade level. To make matters worse, he complains, parents are often in the dark about their kids’ performances until it’s too late.
In response to the video, fellow teachers have recounted their own horror stories of unruly students who are falling behind and still advancing through school systems, with parents seemingly ignorant of what’s happening. Alongside mounting burnout over teacher shortages and insufficient wages, teachers are struggling to address the fact that many students seem to be falling behind at shocking rates.
For more about how this online discourse is manifesting in real classrooms around the country, we turned to a trusted group — the readers of Wake-Up Call, our daily newsletter. Below, our community sounds off about what they’re experiencing firsthand and how they’re trying to make sense of this concerning downward trend among America’s students.
Some students did fall behind as a result of the pandemic, but many problems emerged before Covid
“The pandemic, online learning, and so many other factors really impacted students,” says Wake-Up Call reader and retired teacher Charlene L. Unsurprisingly, school lockdowns really did play a significant role in learning setbacks. According to 2022 research, learning loss occurred across the country during the pandemic (which may seem obvious to anyone who has zoned out during a Zoom lecture). However, those shifts varied by community: Learning loss was especially noticeable in lower-income school districts, while some wealthier districts were left relatively unscathed. Though it seems convenient to chalk every issue up to the pandemic, educators say the situation is much more nuanced.
According to teacher Paula M., behavioral issues at her school can’t be chalked up to Covid because the trouble started in the years prior. “I wish I knew how to motivate them,” she says. “Many of my friends have left the profession altogether. If I could afford to, I would.”
Dan W., a teacher of 27 years, agrees that problems at his school predate the pandemic, and often revolve around whether the kids actually show up: “One of the many challenges we face is student attendance,” he says. “Even before the pandemic, it wasn’t good. If they aren’t here at school, how can they learn?”
Covid issues aside, why haven’t students been showing up to school? And when they do come to class, why are they disruptive or listless? Teachers responded with several theories.
Kids are in a mental health crisis — and some are acting out
“Students are suffering from anxiety and depression at rates I’ve never seen before. Schools are in crisis right now. I love my job, but it’s getting harder and more stressful every year. I wouldn’t encourage a young person to be a teacher today,” says Stacy C., a teacher of 29 years. Dan W. also agrees that he’s worried about “the mental health crisis that we’re currently facing in schools.”
The data backs up their anecdotal evidence. According to a 2023 survey by the CDC, “In 2021, 42 percent of high school students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped doing their usual activities.” According to the same data, approximately one in three teen girls has seriously considered attempting suicide; about 14 percent of boys felt the same. Additionally, a whopping 45 percent of LGBTQ+ adolescents have seriously considered ending their lives.
Of course, these mental issues sometimes manifest as listlessness: “Many students are behind and have no motivation,” says Paula M. “It’s a scary time.”
And while many children are suffering from anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, some of them are also struggling with anger issues and impulse control. “I sometimes get physically sick when I drag myself to work,” Paula M. continues. “I feel like I’m being abused daily. Students will get upset when they don’t get their way; they’ll call me a b*tch.”
Kids have more screen time than ever — and it shows
You may be thinking: What about the phones? We didn’t have those back in my day. According to the teachers who spoke to Katie Couric Media, there’s absolutely some truth to this hunch.
Bob L. says he’s been in school environments that have “allowed students in high school to be on their phones constantly throughout the day” — which, of course, is not the point of school at all.
As Sonya E. says, remote learning also enabled students to ignore teachers in favor of their devices, which has obvious negative consequences: “During Covid, I had to teach remotely to students who wouldn’t turn on their computer cameras, were constantly watching their phones, and did no classwork or homework.”
“Children have changed in the past five years,” says reading specialist Sharon L, who points out that attention spans have noticeably dwindled, which causes significant disruption: “It started before Covid and has gotten drastically worse. They have no attention span whatsoever. There are many more behavior problems in each class. Teachers spend a lot of time managing behavior, and less time on curriculum.”
“What I’ve noticed most in children is distracted attention. They have an inability to follow directions, even after clear explanation and demonstration,” adds Lori. S.
According to the CDC, kids now spend about 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day. That means they’re accustomed to spending more time in a virtual world, which is often significantly more fast-paced than their real lives in the analog world.
Parents are a common denominator
Of all the teachers who spoke to Katie Couric Media, each blamed one group who have significant influence in this situation: Parents.
“The days of clingy ‘helicopter parents’ are gone. Now we call them ‘lawnmower parents’ because they strive to clear away any and every challenge their children have,” says Katee S. “That makes for a whole generation of students who have no coping strategies for when times get tough because mom and dad have cleared every hurdle in sight.”
Stacy C, on the other hand, has observed an opposite yet equally troubling pattern: Parents who are completely detached and apathetic about school. “I’ve found that many parents no longer value school. If kids don’t feel like attending, their parents excuse them. Parents also pull kids out constantly compared to past years.”
Alice T. reports that at her school, parents are an odd mix of apathetic and anxious: “I’m facing backlash from parents. I’ve offered lunchtime and after school sessions to bring freshman students with below-grade-level skills up to speed. While many students are willing to attend these voluntary sessions, there are parents resisting this for various reasons that range from fear that their students’ passion for humanities will be harmed or just plain denial that the student needs this help.”
Lori S. has a theory that may ring true: Our own dependence on screen may be playing a role in poor parenting. “I started parenting in 1995, before I had cell phones, computers, and social media,” she remembers. “I paid full attention to my kid and the other kids I took care of. I witnessed the distractions creeped up quickly through the years. What I see now is either suffocating parenting, social media photo/video parenting, or no-attention parenting.”
Arguably, parents may be grappling with balancing the distractions of technology with dwindling incentive to work with others within their community. Amidst the loneliness epidemic and mounting costs of childcare, many parents now feel that the village they need to raise children no longer exists. Parents, to be fair, are drowning alongside children and teachers.
Regardless, the teachers who spoke to Katie Couric Media agree that we need an urgent reprieve from these conditions, stat. Shari A. points out that the stakes are incredibly high: “These precious souls are our future. I’m a firm believer that they can and should succeed.”
