Indiana Schools Now Serving As Mental Health Clinics: Psychological Student Assessments & Data Collection – by Jeannie Georges

Federal education law (ESSA) mandates that schools serve as mental health clinics. Indiana legislators have implemented these mandates, so closure of the U.S. Department of Education will not stop the intrusion.

ESSA is designed to instill students with the necessary correct values, behaviors, beliefs and attitudes to be ‘trained’ to do a low wage job while submitting to a planned economy. The word trained is used correctly because the Skinnerian stimulus/response method of animal training is used in the classroom. In fact, every psychological method available, including Marxist techniques, is being used in most schools.

Mental health education includes teaching: … “The causes, prevention, and cure and control of mental illness without stigma or emotional harm.”

If the professionals were aware of the causes, prevention, cure and control, the number of mental problems would be diminished considerably. Wouldn’t they?

Instead of reducing mental health problems, they are increasing. One out of four college students is diagnosed with a mental problem or on prescription drugs to treat a mental problem. Reason dictates that psychologically assessing every student for the purpose of preventing and diagnosing mental problems will increase that number.

Schools are assessing every student and often use surveys to get an in-depth psychological profile. Replacing teacher instruction with the use of iPods allows for the gathering of much more personal data. (See VIP earlier article The High-Tech Classroom for the problems associated with children’s use of technology.) The focus of education has become data collection rather than academic instruction.

Do parents, pastors, school board members and legislators know the schools are being used for assessing students and teachers psychologically? They’re not only assessing but remediating them until they conform to the state approved standards. Parents who have received notification that their child would be given an assessment, such as the Panorama Survey, were unlikely to have questioned the school about its purpose or use. They wouldn’t know what the introduction to this survey states:

“Social-emotional learning (SEL) describes the mindsets, skills, attitudes, and feelings that help students succeed in school, career, and life, such as growth mindset, grit, and sense of belonging at school. Educators use many names for these skills, such as “non-cognitive skills”, “soft skills”, “21st century skills”, “character strengths,” and “whole child.”

Notice there is no hint of anything academic or knowledge based. As psychological assessments/surveys and interventions of children have increased in the schools, academic success has decreased, and behavioral problems have increased. Those who understood the results of federal involvement in education warned about this several decades ago.  Schools have a history of increasing what they claim they’ll decrease.

One researcher suggested parents ask five questions about any assessment of their child’s non-cognitive skills such as ethical judgment, honesty, social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. How is honesty measured? Will it be a secular or Biblical definition? What is the standard; how is it scored? (How much honesty is acceptable; how much is too much or not enough?) Who decided what the standard should be? How will my child be remediated if he isn’t honest enough? What form of manipulation will be used?

What if parent and government disagree on the standard or how it is measured or observed in the classroom? Who has the ultimate authority over the child – parents or the government? Are parents giving written informed permission?

Students give away valuable personal data about themselves, teachers and others on these assessments. Does no one care about the God-given right to privacy? The data tracking and mining are civil rights violations that make Snowden’s revelations look mild by comparison.  If a business will offer a freebie or a chance to win for completing a survey, how much do you think these in-depth surveys are worth? When the school administers a free survey such as the Panorama Education Survey, one must ask, “who’s paying for it and who’s profiting?”

Here’s a clue: the first gift from Zuckerberg’s “Education” foundation went to Panorama. In fact, Panorama received millions from Zuckerberg/Facebook and Google shortly after its start-up.  Who do you think might be ending up with all the data?

Understand, these assessments/surveys are used to diagnose students with mental illnesses. Yes, everyone will have one or more mental illnesses. The assessments and surveys will be used to specifically determine remediation of students’ unacceptable values, behaviors, or beliefs. Assessment writers and evaluators will reap huge profits from your tax dollars designated to support the schools.

Profit may not be the major goal of the federal education plans, but this is another opportunity to be reminded – follow the money.

Be on guard. The Panorama survey has been given locally with no exposure. Other surveys and assessments are on-going projects in our schools. Written consent is rarely, if ever, asked for.

The first way to war against this is – do not allow your child to take any school survey or assessment. If they’ve taken a survey, ask to see it; ask who has the information. Start the school year by notifying the school in writing that your child may not participate in any survey or assessment without your written permission.

For more info or to report surveys and assessments contact this writer at: rjgeorges.1@gmail.com