Ending the Youth Mental Health Crisis by Redesigning Public Education
Grounded in national superintendent leadership and modern developmental science
For Washington superintendents and school boards
This initiative offers a concrete path to end the youth mental health crisis by redesigning public education around modern developmental science—not by layering one more reform onto a 150-year-old model, now shown to be misaligned with how children grow, learn, and thrive.
Using existing buildings, staffing, and budgets, districts can create science‑aligned learning environments that reduce predictable harm and significantly improve student well‑being and learning for more than one million Washington students—helping establish a new standard of care for public education while advancing equity for young people (long underserved) by a one‑size‑fits‑all, age‑based school model.
Ready to see what this looks like with your own data and schools?
Schedule a district briefing for a clear, low-pressure starting point.
National “State of Emergency” in Children’s Mental Health Declared
The evidence is now clear: this crisis is system-produced—and it is preventable only by redesign.
Washington’s youth mental health crisis isn’t about funding — it’s a system failure. Public schools are misaligned with modern developmental science, leaving students stressed, disconnected, and harmed.
In October 2021, the nation’s leading pediatric and child mental-health organizations—the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association—jointly declared a National State of Emergency in Children’s Mental Health.
They warned that current conditions are placing young people at foreseeable risk of harm—and that this harm is preventable through urgent, system-level action.
Shocking—but predictable
Studies show that youth suicide attempts drop when school is out and spike again when school is in session, a pattern distinct to children and adolescents.
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Once this is understood, harm is no longer random. It is a predictable outcome of how school is designed.
In every field where lives are at stake—medicine, aviation, engineering—professionals are required to follow current science and uphold a recognized standard of care. Public education is the only system shaping human development at scale without the same expectation. This initiative exists to bring public education into alignment with the standards every other life-critical field already accepts.
Girls Are Experiencing the Crisis Most Acutely
“The mental health of our nation’s youth—especially girls—has worsened in recent years and requires urgent attention.”
— Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Decades of evidence now show that the age-based, standardized school model still used in Washington State is causing preventable, predictable harm to our most vulnerable students.
Across pediatrics, neuroscience, psychology, and learning science, experts increasingly converge on the same first step: redesign school environments around children’s basic psychological needs—not patch a model misaligned with how young people grow, learn, and thrive.
In this crisis, prevention is redesign. And it saves lives.
Redesigning Washington’s public schools so every student can thrive.
Washington can redesign its schools in line with modern science—using existing buildings, staffing, and budgets—to dramatically improve student well-being.
This initiative is:
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A cost-neutral, science-aligned pathway districts can implement inside existing public schools
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Built for superintendents, school boards, and district leaders ready to move from reform to redesign
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Grounded in modern science, which shows that the current age-based, standardized school model drives today’s youth mental-health crisis and persistently low academic outcomes
In 2021, the nation’s superintendents called for system-wide redesign by 2025.
In April 2021, AASA — The School Superintendents Association released An American Imperative: A New Vision for Public Schools, the report of its Learning 2025 National Commission.
The Commission concluded that there was “no time for ad hoc or piecemeal changes” and called on districts nationwide to pursue holistic, student-centered, science-aligned redesign of the public school system by 2025.
Four years later, however, most districts continue to operate within the same age-based, standardized model the Commission warned was no longer sufficient and should no longer be tolerated—leaving the conditions driving student disengagement, distress, and unmet needs largely unchanged, making clear that decisive state-level leadership and locally grounded redesign are now required.
Why redesign is now unavoidable
Modern developmental science shows that Washington’s youth mental-health crisis is not caused by children, families, or educators. It is the predictable result of conditions created by a public school model designed more than 150 years ago—long before contemporary science on how young people grow, learn, and develop.​
Across districts and decades, Washington’s own data show persistent patterns of student distress, disengagement, and unmet learning needs. At the same time, evidence across neuroscience, learning science, pediatrics, psychology, and public health demonstrates that every young person can learn and thrive when learning environments are intentionally designed for strong relationships, safety, belonging, and meaningful challenge.​
These patterns are not isolated or episodic; they appear consistently across statewide surveys and academic reporting:
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About 1 in 2 high-school students reports persistent emotional distress.
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About 1 in 6 has seriously considered suicide; 70–100 young lives are lost each year.
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Nearly half of students are not meeting grade-level expectations in core subjects.
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Two-thirds of eighth graders are below proficiency in reading or math.
The same conditions identified by pediatric and mental- health leaders are the predictable outcomes of this model.
The science of learning and development shows that these outcomes are structurally produced
when school environments are organized around standardization, sorting, and
compliance—rather than integrated social, emotional, cognitive, and academic development.
Under different conditions, the very same students can build the skills, resilience, and
relationships needed to thrive, even in the face of adversity outside school.​
Modern developmental science and national superintendent organizations now recognize: the 150-year-old, age-based school model still used today is a primary driver of the youth mental-health crisis—not children, families, or social media.
​What is required now is not another reform cycle, but a transition—from maintaining an outdated model to redesigning public education so it aligns with what science already shows works.​
This does not require new funding or retraining
Public schools already have what they need to redesign learning. The barrier is not money, materials, or professional capacity—it is how the current system is organized. Educators already possess the skills to lead student centered, developmentally aligned environments. Every day, they differentiate instruction, support diverse learners, build strong relationships, and adapt to student needs—often in spite of, not because of, the standardized model they work within. Redesign requires a shift in role from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side”—not a new workforce or wholesale retraining effort.
Redesign is a reorganization of roles and structures—not a demand that educators become different people.
When educators leave the standardized public school model to create science aligned microschools, they must rebuild everything from scratch. Public schools already have the same assets—students, buildings, staffing, and funding—making redesign more feasible inside the public system than outside it. The work ahead is less about acquiring new tools and more about creating environments that allow professionals to teach in ways they already know work. That is why major national education organizations now identify public microschools as a critical first step toward science-aligned system transformation.
What this initiative offers districts
What districts can do now
Districts can begin science-aligned redesign today—at no new cost.
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Use your own data to define the design problem.
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Launch a pilot in existing buildings with current staff and budgets.
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Measure what matters: student thriving, engagement, and growth—not just compliance.
For districts and school boards, this initiative:
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Delivers clear, district-specific briefings on student well-being, engagement, and learning—grounded in publicly reported data already visible to your community.
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​Provides a cost-neutral pathway to launch science-aligned redesign pilots inside existing schools—including district-run microschools or pilots within alternative learning environments already permitted under Washington law—at a pace determined by the district.
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Aligns redesign with the state’s 90% proficiency goal and constitutional duty, reducing legal, political, and financial risk while increasing strategic coherence.
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Supports leaders in moving from maintenance to redesign, offering practical, science grounded next steps rather than abstract recommendations.​
When the System Fails, Special Education Becomes the Stopgap
A 2025 analysis finds that special education has become the “stopgap” for a one-size-fits-all school model—sweeping millions of students into disability labels when the deeper problem is system design.
Outmatched — Special Education Can’t Solve Problems Rooted in the Education Delivery System (2025)
“We should not expect children to adapt to our flawed system; we must redesign our systems to adapt to each learner.”
— Science of Learning and Development Alliance, 2020
Washington law requires public schools to provide every child with a safe, appropriate, and high‑quality education.
This initiative supports districts in meeting that constitutional obligation under current conditions—recognizing that modern developmental science increasingly defines what “safe,” “appropriate,” and “high‑quality” mean in practice.
As expectations for student well‑being and learning evolve, this work helps districts align system design with both legal duty and scientific evidence, reducing risk while strengthening outcomes for students.
The evidence is clear
Across neuroscience, pediatrics, psychology, learning science, and public health, leading institutions converge on the same conclusion: children thrive when learning environments provide belonging, identity, autonomy, mastery, relevance, purpose, and strong relationships.
The current school model—built around standardization and age-based pacing—is biologically and developmentally misaligned with how young people grow and learn.​ Aligning schools with this evidence requires environments designed for relationships, relevance, and mastery—not time-based pacing, compliance routines, and constant remediation as the core organizing logic. Taken together, this evidence makes redesign no longer optional; it is a scientific, legal, and moral imperative.
National security leaders are sounding the alarm as well: former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has warned that the crisis in K–12 education “may well be our greatest national security threat,” noting that failing schools disproportionately harm the poorest students and weaken America’s economic strength, social cohesion, and national security institutions.​
Why two decades of reform failed
For more than twenty years, Washington has increased funding, revised standards, adopted new programs, expanded staffing, and layered intervention upon intervention. Yet statewide academic outcomes and student well-being have remained largely unchanged.​
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Across both the No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act eras, the state set 90% proficiency goals and repeatedly revised accountability systems, improvement plans, and reform strategies. Despite these efforts, proficiency rates and indicators of student well-being have remained stubbornly flat across districts and over time.​
​This is not a failure of commitment, effort, or investment. It is the predictable result of attempting to improve outcomes without changing the underlying system design. Reforms layered onto a model that remains structurally misaligned with how children learn and develop cannot produce different outcomes—no matter how well intentioned or well funded. Without redesign, these patterns will continue; with redesign, different outcomes become possible.​
Modern science makes one reality inescapable: Washington cannot reach its 90% goals by reforming a system that is structurally misaligned with how children grow, learn, and thrive.
The proof Washington can no longer ignore: Seattle’s story
In the 1970s, Seattle—one of the nation’s most well-resourced and reform-oriented districts—volunteered to lead the country in equity and inclusive education. Over the decades that followed, the district invested heavily in reforms, initiatives, standards, and strategic plans, ultimately becoming a system with a budget of over one billion dollars and average teacher compensation of about $140,000 a year.
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More than fifty years later, large racial and opportunity gaps persist, alongside widespread student distress, disengagement, and stagnant academic outcomes. Seattle is not unique; it is a case study in what happens when committed educators and leaders attempt to improve results by reforming an outdated school model rather than redesigning it.
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When schools align with modern developmental science
When learning environments are intentionally designed for belonging, identity, agency, mastery, and purpose, student well-being and learning improve together. Students attend more consistently, feel safer and more connected, and report less distress as relationships and relevance increase.​
At the same time, academic growth accelerates when instruction is organized around demonstrated mastery—not seat time—allowing students to progress as they are ready rather than on a fixed schedule. These outcomes are not theoretical; they have been documented across diverse settings when systems are redesigned—rather than patched—to align with modern developmental science.​
Learn more
This initiative is designed for school board directors, superintendents, district leaders, educators, families, funders, and policymakers who are making consequential decisions about how students experience school.
Those decisions shape whether young people merely endure the system—or are able to grow, belong, and thrive within it.
The resources below provide evidence, data, and context to support clear, well‑informed choices, so that every child in your district receives the safe, appropriate, high‑quality, and developmentally aligned public education that modern science affirms and the law requires.
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Featured Resources:
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1. How to Tell If Your School Model Is Still Harming Students
A practical test using publicly available indicators of system design.
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2. Washington Law Requires More Than “Good Enough”
Why Every Child Is Entitled to a Safe, Appropriate, High‑Quality Education—and How Modern Science Now Defines What That Means.
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3. Law and Student Protections for Every Washington Student
What Washington law already requires to provide every student a safe and appropriate public education.
washington state test scores & spendings
Over decades, education spending has risen substantially while academic outcomes have remained largely flat. Extensive research from leading scientific and educational institutions now shows that the 150‑year‑old, standardized school model is biologically and developmentally misaligned with how children grow, learn, and thrive, making comprehensive redesign an urgent necessity—not optional reform.
Schedule a briefing for your school district
Gain a clear picture of how students are experiencing school today—and see how redesign can begin within your existing facilities, staffing, and budget. Briefings are tailored to each district using publicly reported data and are designed to support informed, low-pressure exploration.​
With gratitude
This initiative is made possible through the generosity of [Foundation Name], with special thanks to
[Point Contact Person] for steadfast commitment to Washington’s children and to the future of public education.
Those who work closest with children—educators, pediatricians, counselors, and families—consistently
name youth mental health as the most urgent issue of our time. There is no greater gift we
can give our children than addressing the root causes of this crisis. With the partnership of
philanthropic leaders, this work will expand across Washington and help guide science aligned public school redesign nationwide.
It is a scientific fact that your support will:
Save Lives Expand Opportunity Restore Joy
Geoffrey Canada, M.Ed.
“This year, there are going to be millions of our children who we’re going to needlessly lose. We could save them all. It’s absolutely possible. Why haven’t we fixed this? Those of us in education have held onto a business plan that doesn’t care how many millions of young people fail. We are going to continue to do the same exact thing that didn’t work. Enough is enough!”
What Superintendents and Boards Must Do in a State of Emergency
If your district is not on track for at least 90% of students meeting state proficiency by 2027, modern developmental science—and leading medical and education organizations—now recognize this as evidence of system design failure.
In a public system responsible for the well-being and futures of children, such failure creates an urgent professional obligation to redesign schooling in alignment with how young people actually grow, learn, and thrive.
For Superintendents, School Board Directors, and other District Administrators
In every field where lives are at stake—medicine, aviation, engineering—professionals are required to follow current science and uphold a recognized standard of care.
How to know if your district has a design problem
When decades of flat academic performance are paired with Healthy Youth Survey results showing elevated anxiety, depression, or suicidal ideation—even as educators work hard and funding debates continue—the issue is no longer effort, commitment, or dollars. It is how the system is designed.
The age-based, standardized school model still used in Washington—now identified by modern developmental science as a primary driver of both persistent academic underperformance and the youth mental-health crisis—continues to shape students’ daily experience. Under different conditions, within a modern, science-aligned learning model designed around every child’s developmental and psychological needs, these same students can thrive.
When the system stops putting students first
This initiative is not about assigning blame. It exists to clarify responsibility for student safety, well-being, and learning in light of modern science and publicly available evidence.
Recent national analyses help explain why long-documented problems persist despite decades of reform. In Ours to Solve… Once and For All (2024), the Education Futures Council found that governance structures and incentive systems within public education frequently prioritize adult interests and institutional stability over student well-being—making system-level change difficult even when evidence of harm is clear and feasible alternatives exist.
Award-winning education journalist John Merrow, drawing on more than four decades of reporting on American public schools, has reached a similar conclusion: that institutional denial and resistance to structural change are among the most consistent barriers to aligning schools with what research shows students need to thrive.
Together, this body of work points to a critical reality. When scientific consensus is established, harm is persistent and predictable, and science-aligned alternatives are available, continued reliance on an outdated model cannot be attributed to uncertainty or lack of information. It reflects system design and governance choices.
At that point, inaction becomes a decision.
This initiative invites school boards, superintendents, and district leaders to engage directly with the evidence, examine their own data, and lead the transition to public school models that prioritize student well-being and learning over preservation of structures that modern science shows cause predictable, preventable harm—especially for students most vulnerable to system design failures.
Why funding narratives persist — and why they fail
Evidence on system design must be part of the public conversation
When public schools face persistent challenges, public debate reliably returns to funding—often framed as action “on behalf of students.” A few families and students understandably rally around these calls, especially where needs are acute and visible. What is far less visible is evidence that outcomes remain constrained even as additional dollars are applied to the same age-based, standardized school model.
Even in high-spending systems—such as New York City, where per-student costs now exceed $35,000—student distress and uneven achievement persist. In Washington State, educators are among the best-compensated in the country, reflecting strong professional capacity rather than simple underinvestment. In both contexts, the core design of schooling remains largely unchanged, and so do the patterns of distress and uneven achievement.
When system design remains untouched, funding debates repeat, responsibility for redesign is obscured, and predictable harm continues for students and educators alike. Each budget cycle invites families to defend outcomes the current model is not built to deliver, while assumptions about time, grouping, assessment, and relationships go unexamined. Honest accountability requires shifting the conversation—not away from funding, but toward whether the model itself can meet what this generation of young people needs.