While most children do not celebrate the return to school with the same enthusiasm as, say, Christmas, there are some who note the “back-to-school” buzz and feel excitement -excitement to see friends, teachers, or experience typical public education “rites-of-passage” such as riding on the school bus, trading sandwiches at the lunch table, or placing well in a spelling bee. For others, the back-to-school feelings are much more complex and the return to school each late summer or early fall is something to be endured rather than anticipate. Unfortunately, many recent studies corroborate with the latter sentiments about public school for grades K-12.
The Pew Research Center’s “Problems Students Are Facing at Public K‑12 Schools” (2024) report finds that 48% of teachers rate most students’ academic performance as fair or poor, and 49% rate behavior similarly. Teachers in high‑poverty schools are far more likely to report these issues (73% academic, 64% behavior) compared to low‑poverty schools (27% academic, 37% behavior). About 80% of teachers say the pandemic’s lasting impact on students’ behavior, academics, and emotional well‑being has been negative, with a third or more calling it “very negative.”
The American public education system currently stands at a critical crossroads. While progress has been made since the damages inflicted by the pandemic, public schools face unprecedented pressures that directly impact students, teacher well-being, and long-term institutional stability. Today’s teachers and students must navigate the complex realities of shifting demographics, technology gaps, rising mental health needs, and financial constraints.
Classroom overcrowding continues to be an issue for many districts -particularly in growing suburban and urban areas. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2024), the average class size for grades 9–12 in public schools is 27 students, with some high-growth states such as Texas and Florida reporting averages above 30. Contrary to the reality of current class sizes, research consistently shows that smaller class sizes with around 15–18 students, especially for younger grades, significantly boosts academic achievement and long-term success. This is even more pertinent for students from low-income households.
Unfortunately, staffing shortages and funding cuts often force districts to raise class size caps. Here in Massachusetts, there are 1.1 million students in the public school system, grades K-12. Statewide, most Massachusetts public school classes average around 18–21 students, though this varies widely by district. The 2023 Boston Teachers Union Contract put a limit on class sizes. The newly negotiated limits cap class sizes depending on grade level and also take into account how many students per class are on IEPs or 504’s. In Bilingual, ESL, and SEI classes, there can be no more than 20 students at any grade level, unless a paraprofessional is provided.
In addition to classroom size, another significant challenge to our public education system is poverty. Student poverty has long been, and continues to be, one of the most significant challenges facing public schools. As of 2025, 21% of U.S. children live in households below the federal poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau). In over 20 states, a majority of public-school students qualify as low-income and are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs.
Poverty impacts every aspect of learning -from attendance to test performance. The physical and mental struggles due to food insecurity, unstable housing, unmet material needs, and limited access to healthcare do not stay at home and heavily impact a child’s ability to focus and participate in school to their full capacity. Teachers often have to step in to supply basic necessities, and free lunch and before school breakfast programs across the country are burdened beyond their abilities to meet the collective growing need.
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a federally assisted meal program that operates in nearly 95,000 public and nonprofit private schools and residential childcare institutions across the United States. In Massachusetts, school lunches and breakfasts were made permanently free for all students in school year 2022-2023. Most of the support the USDA and the Commonwealth provide to schools in the NSLP comes in the form of a cash reimbursement for each meal served. Federal funds from the USDA reimburse meals served to students at three different rates according to student eligibility for free, reduced price, or paid.
The Commonwealth Funds for Massachusetts reimburse meals served to students counted in the reduced price and paid categories in the amount equal to what USDA provides in the free rate. This allows all students to access healthy school meals at no cost. Many students would not have lunch or breakfast without the schools stepping in to provide them. According to the Boston Food Bank and Project Bread, 40% of Massachusetts households experience food insecurity. There are a lot of families sending hungry kids to school -which makes the food that the school can provide all the more critical.
While poverty is not a new issue that public schools face, they are met with uncharted territory in the implementation, reliance on, and monitoring/restricting of technology. Technology in public education has expanded dramatically since the pandemic, but inequities stemming from uneven supply distribution and in-school technology support to maintain massive numbers of laptops and other technological devices can cause significant issues for schools, teachers, and students. As of 2024, 94% of public schools report distributing devices to students (NCES, 2024), but disparities in home internet access remain stark. Rural teachers, students, and those in low-income households are disproportionately affected by a lack of funding for equipment and by less access to dependable internet.
Even if a school district has the ability to provide laptops and technological support and access to its students, there are constant adaptions needed on the part of the educators and administrators to find reasonable and healthy boundaries, limits, and protections to keep students on task and out of trouble when using the internet and other resources. For some students with neurodivergence, or ones who are prone to screen-addiction, the requirement to use a computer for a large portion of their school work is often beyond their ability to navigate with self-regulation alone. Instead of being able to focus on the task at hand, they are required to spend more energy and focus on resisting the urge to digress from what they need to be doing. It is not allowing for much progression and leads to frustration for students, teachers, and caregivers.
The implementation of technology in public schools in its current role has many benefits and is necessary to move students into modern society with the skills they need to succeed. It also means public schools must spend time, energy, money, and resources mitigating screen time for students by pairing device mandates and software protection programs with structured, health‑focused policies, education about screen and technology use for students, and providing supportive environments with technology and educational specialists.
To complicate the already overwhelming task of implementing technology as an inseparable part of school, AI-powered learning platforms and adaptive tools have come onto the scene and presented a myriad of complex issues more than seamless solutions and possibilities. AI in education promises a more personalized approach per student, but many schools lack funding to implement AI tools effectively and there are growing and legitimate concerns about the use of AI on the environment and the dangers it poses to our society -especially as we become more reliant on it.
With access to technology in many platforms and via various devices, learning tools have never been more numerous. However, students also face a new way for social struggles to inhibit their learning experience. Bullying remains a pressing concern -especially in the digital format. The Cyberbullying Research Center reported that about 58% of middle and high school students (ages 13–17) have been cyberbullied at some point in their lives, and roughly 33% of students reported being cyberbullied in the past 30 days. Constant online exposure magnifies the psychological toll, contributing to rising rates of depression and anxiety among teens.
Many states have passed stricter cyberbullying laws, but enforcement remains inconsistent and tracking is not an effective tool of prevention. Schools are being pressured to find and promote balance between legal limitations and proactive prevention where parents and caregivers are either unable, unaware, or unwilling to take the lead. Cyberbullying is met with the usual bullying in schools and compounding the issue to extremes never dealt with before.
While bullying at school is nothing new, the access children have to each other after school hours via social media and technology means bullying often continues after school hours. A general decline in altruistic nature among youth is on the rise in and outside of school. Teachers increasingly cite apathy, absenteeism, and disruptive behavior as some of the biggest barriers to effective instruction and socialization.
In addition, social divides among adults have filtered down to children. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 40% of youth report being bullied on school property -a 14% increase in pre-pandemic levels. With a disconnect socially from one another, children are showing an increase in chronic absenteeism which is missing more than 10% of the school year. This pattern has surged since the pandemic, with NCES reporting 26% of students were chronically absent in 2023–24 -nearly double pre-pandemic levels.
Experts have linked the increase in social and educational apathy and disengagement to mental health struggles, lack of belonging, and insufficient extracurricular opportunities -often due to financial strain and parents who must work and are unable to provide transportation to extracurricular activities. Addressing these challenges requires holistic approaches including mentorship programs, restorative justice practices, and expanded after-school enrichment where familial and home support systems are limited or lacking.
Student health challenges have also changed in the last decade. Health concerns have expanded beyond obesity and are dominated by an increasing mental health crisis. The Surgeon General’s Advisory on Youth Mental Health in 2023 warned of record-high rates of anxiety and depression among teens, worsened by social media use and pandemic disruptions.
Schools are increasingly hiring mental health professionals, but shortages with funding and staffing for these positions are severe. The American School Counselor Association recommends one counselor per 250 students; the national average is currently one per 408. Nutrition and physical activity also remain concerns and have direct impacts on children’s mental health. Some schools with adequate funding are implementing elective classes for students to learn self-coping skills and mental health strategies that can be used as life skills and taken far beyond the classroom.
Underlying all the above challenges students face in the American public school system, funding remains the root of most challenges. Public school budgets are heavily tied to local property taxes, perpetuating inequities and uneven distribution between wealthy and under-resourced districts. Inflation, rising labor costs, and a plummeting national economy have further strained budgets, leading to staff reductions and program cuts as the first measures often taken by local government. Art, vocational, and other specialized subjects and classes are often the first to be cut from budgets in spite of their critical roles in helping students be well-rounded, have creative outlets, and increased opportunities for self-expression -all massively beneficial to remedy the mental health and student-to-student apathy issues mentioned above. The National Education Association (2024) reported that the average U.S. teacher salary is $74,495 with a starting salary at $48,112, but pay lags behind other professions requiring similar education levels. Teacher shortages in critical areas -especially special education, STEM, and bilingual education, require additional training and are growing. Federal programs like Title I provide targeted funding, yet national demand far outpaces resources. Without systemic reform, funding gaps will continue to drive disparities in class size, technology access, and student support.
After going through just some of the challenges students in the public school system face, it may seem that they are up against too many odds to be optimistic about, but these challenges have also provided opportunities to find solutions to begin to counter the negative. Proactive nationwide services such as the Student Engagement and Attendance Center (SEAC) through the US Department of Education created virtual Learning Series to provide topical, intensive technical assistance through multi-session series for teachers that present research, practices, and applications related to reducing chronic absenteeism and improving student engagement. There have been updated Rural Education Resources to provide to increase state capacity to support rural school principals in their efforts to implement ESEA plans and initiatives in rural districts. Concentrated efforts and funding have gone to improving literacy and math with increased options of one-on-one access tutoring through before and after school programs, extended learning time, and evidence-based instruction instead of standardized practices.
Additionally, many charter schools and other public-school programs have started to focus on adopting personalized learning models, flexible pacing, and project-based learning to meet individual needs rather than force all students to learn the same way. Researchers, practitioners, and educators are focused on more rigorous ways to evaluate student progress, different approaches to teaching and learning, and forming collaborations that make career training possible from an early age -especially to children living in lower-income demographics. There has been a push for more funding for in-school support -including trauma-informed care and interventions using science to get students and educators on the same page, so to speak and to provide support to students who may be lacking an outside support system.
The 2026 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Survey highlighted elevated levels of anxiety, depression, and stress among teens. In response, many districts have increased school counselor staffing, added social-emotional learning programs, implemented social media training and management classes or lessons to help students navigate the expanding presence of social media and technology in their lives, expanded partnerships with community mental health providers to destigmatize mental health care, and implemented restorative discipline practices that are focused on reform rather than purely punishment.
With a focus on the drastic and constant efforts our educators are putting into helping students find academic and overall success and stability, having support from home or a healthy support system is more imperative than anything that can be done in school. Michelle, a local 29-year veteran teacher offered this insight as to what she feels is crucial to help students right now, “It sounds cliché, but keeping an open line of communication from home to school is extremely important to helping teachers understand where their students are coming from. Parents don’t need to divulge every detail, but giving us a heads up on any changes that could impact the child helps us to give students a little extra TLC and can make all the difference for that child.”
With the mammoth efforts of educators persisting -often in spite of many current obstacles placed in the way of public school and student success, let’s not forget that we (parents, family, community) are our student’s greatest advocates. What academic marks would we, as adults, earn based on our involvement and support of our students and schools? It is up to us to insist that public education evolves in a more holistic manner where things are less clinical and more student-based, where funding is offered first rather than taking the first cuts, where educators are supported instead of undermined, and where stability and safety facilitate students increased ability to learn without inhibition. Let’s see to it that the kids are alright.