An Interesting Effect of School Closures

People who follow me are used to this data, of course, but they ran it statistically to correspond at the county level to foot traffic, school foot traffic, seasonality, and in a number of covariates like race and method.

they posit a bullying/school stress hypothesis

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— Tyler Black, MD (@tylerblack32) December 26, 2022

This looks like another important paper on schooling during the pandemic. The authors find that in-person schooling was associated with MORE teen suicides. I have something to read on my flight now.https://t.co/jn7OHeh5pZ pic.twitter.com/HBUWvp5Yue

— Alvin Christian (@_AlvinChristian) December 26, 2022

This is fascinating.

With all the discussions about remote education, (and masking) and the possible effects on children's socialization, there is remarkably little hard data on the effects, particularly in the long term.

We talk about learning loss, but in the long term, we don't know if it is something short term like summer "Learning loss."

What we do have though, is some hard numbers on juvenile suicide, and suicides dropped off significantly during school shutdowns.

FWIW, this is not because of closer parental supervision, the majority of youth suicides occur at home.

The cause of this is not clear.  It may be school bullying, it may be ordinary stress from the social aspects of being in school.  (Charlie says that you are the worst person you ever will be in middle school)

It is not unreasonable to suggest that suicide rates are a good proxy for mental health, and as such, it appears, that whatever other effects there were from remote learning, there was a significant increase in mental well-being.

This should surprise no one.

It has always been the case that child and teen suicides fall during the summer months, when school is out.

School is a deliberately unpleasant place, with the enforcement or rigid regimes with little rhyme or reason.

These days, it is even worse, because the educational reform establishment believes that the way to make schools "Better" is to make the environment more punitive and regimented.