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Allowing families to choose schools that are best suited to their children can play a key role in improving students’ mental health, including reducing teen suicide rates, suggests new research published in the peer-reviewed journal. pairs. School effectiveness and school improvement.
The study is the first of its kind to examine the relationship between US school choice policies and adolescent suicide and mental health problems.
US states are expanding private school options through charter schools, which are publicly funded, but charter schools are awarded to operate outside of many of the neighborhood common school regulations and programs. coupons for students to attend a private school of their choice. More than 6% (more than 3.1 million) of all public school students attend charter schools and more than 5.7 million students attend private schools [1]. However, little is known about whether these options affect students’ mental health.
The US National Institute of Mental Health estimates that about half of adolescents (ages 13 to 18) will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime. Between 2007 and 2015, suicide rates doubled among girls ages 15-19 and increased by 30% among boys the same age. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Americans ages 15 to 34 and the third leading cause of death for those ages 10 to 14.
To examine the relationship between school choice and adolescent suicide and the impact of private education on adult mental health, the researchers analyzed data from public and private schools from 49 states between 1976 and 2016, along with representative data from national level of 4,353 students who participated in 1997-1998. cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (which were followed for about 15 years).
The findings suggest that states that adopted voucher and charter school choice laws experienced declines in suicide rates among youth, even after accounting for demographic (e.g. age, race) and economic (e.g., unemployment rate, percentage of the state below the poverty line). The researchers estimate that the effect of the charter school law translated into a decrease of about 10% in the suicide rate among young people ages 15 to 19.
Additional analyzes of the survey data suggest that private education was associated with better mental health in adulthood, even after controlling for important health and sociodemographic factors, including gender, parental education level, family income, race, and mental health measures near the start of the study. .
Compared to public schools, people who attended private schools were about 2 percentage points less likely to report having a mental health condition in their 30s and to receive treatment for a mental illness.
“Our findings raise the question of whether greater choice of schools could improve the mental health of students in the short and long term,” says Professor Angela Dills of Western Carolina University, NC, USA, who co-led the research. . “Private schools are likely to face stronger competitive pressures to provide a safer school environment and improve mental health if they want to remain open. Public schools, on the other hand, are more likely to be burdened with government regulations that make it difficult for them to control discipline policy and create strong school cultures. “
According to co-lead author Corey DeAngelis of the Reason Foundation in Washington, DC, USA: “Our results suggest that expanding school options could help address the roots of students’ mental health problem. Unfortunately, many students are trapped in unhealthy or unsafe schools environments, which can have extremely damaging effects on their mental health. Further research could identify the mechanisms that promote mental health in charter schools and private schools. ”
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