Current Inks

Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Failures- Part 3 of 4

December 30, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts Family, School, Tennessee Legislation

(Having surveyed the strings attached to school choice money in yesterday’s part 2, I now turn to the failures of school choice by their own standards.)

With any government program spending our hard-earned tax money, we, the citizens, deserve to know whether or not such a program accomplished anything worthwhile. For the most part we can all agree that educating children is a reasonable goal in general even if we might argue that it is not the government’s role Biblically. From there, we can all agree that if the government says that a school choice program funded by millions of dollars was implemented to improve educational outcomes, then we should be able to measure those outcomes and see a difference. The children who receive vouchers or educational savings accounts should fare better for having received the benefits.

At this point, things get a little murkier. Determining whether or not a child or the whole group of recipients fared better depends greatly on what measurements are chosen as criteria for success. A few hypothetical examples will demonstrate how the choice and methods of measurement can affect whether or not a program is deemed a success by anyone.

Let’s say 1,000 children receive the voucher or whatever it is ultimately called and attend a school of their parent’s choosing for 1 year. At the end of that 1 year, some measurement must be taken of the students who remained in the public schools and those who escaped. The chosen criteria must be applied to both groups in order to compare apples to apples. The simplest and most often chosen criteria is the standardized test already administered by the state to all its public-school students. This assumes that this test actually measures a child’s academic abilities. Even if it measures academic abilities at that point in time, one must then ask if it predicts with any accuracy a child’s future success in life. In other words, does it predict graduation rate from high school or college at the least or does it predict life success of future adults in terms of annual salaries or future career success?

While the debate over whether or not the current standardized tests actually provide a real prediction of student success could rage on for pages and hours, for the sake of this argument we will allow the proponents of school choice to have this criteria. By doing so, we can look at their chosen method of assessing the success of their own programs. At the very least, if they are going to spend millions of dollars, they should perform well by their own standard.

Before looking at their actual performance across a number of currently active school choice programs, we should recognize a couple of other criteria as well. For some parents, the academic opportunities may be important but getting their child out of a physically dangerous school may be foremost on their minds. In many urban schools, bullying, violence, even gangs may encourage parents to sign their children up for a school choice “run for your life” option. While it is terribly sad that some schools have reached this boiling point, it is a reality of the government run system which has lost its control over their students. The other reported criteria, even in the absence of physical dangers, has been simple parental satisfaction. Surveys have looked at the parents’ satisfaction in regards to their child’s educational experience based on which school they attend.

Giving the school choice proponents the opportunity to prove the program’s benefits by comparing test scores, we would hope to see a consistent and significant improvement in scores for participants. We could understand that such an improvement might need two or three years to manifest, but at some point in time, we should see an increase if the program was producing as the proponents claim. In reality, the statistics do not give the proponents much to boast about. In general, the students who do show the most consistent and significant score improvements are those in the lower economic classes. Before looking at more details statistics, this might seem a worthwhile result as the marketed goals of school choice often focus on helping those who don’t have the financial abilities to attend private schools. A problem arises when some state programs report participant numbers highly tilted away from these lower income students. In some states, a high percentage of program participants end up being students who are already attending private schools before the school choice program and thus not reaching as many actually still in those poorly performing schools. The left-leaning school choice opponents might have a point that much of the money is primarily benefitting those who already have the money to escape the public school system in the first place without the government assistance.

While I will include a bibliography of research reports for you to review at your discretion, a few further takeaways should be noted. First, the results of these studies can be skewed by bias as any study can be manipulated, especially when the measured outcomes do not demonstrate large differences between the groups (public school versus school choice recipients). Choice of outcomes can influence how report authors decide to publish their findings depending on their pre-existing opinions of school choice. Therefore, we should look at several data sources before coming to a conclusion on school choice’s efficacy.

Catt, D., & et, al. (2021, November 4). 25 Years: 25 Most Significant School Choice Research Findings. EdChoice. https://www.edchoice.org/engage/25-years-25-most-significant-school-choice-research-findings/

DeAngelis, C. A. (2018, Winter). What Leads to Successful School Choice Programs? A Review of the Theories and Evidence. Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2018/what-leads-successful-school-choice-programs-review-theories-evidence

Dynarski, M., & et, al. (2018, May). Evaluation of the DC opportunity scholarship program. Institute of Education Sciences. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184010/pdf/20184010.pdf

Figlio, D., & Karbownik, K. (2016, July). Evaluation of Ohio’s Edchoice Scholarship Program. Fordham Institute. https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/FORDHAM%20Ed%20Choice%20Evaluation%20Report_online%20edition.pdf

Gleason, P., & et, al. (2010, June). The evaluation of Charter School Impacts – Executive Summary. Institute of Education Sciences. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104029/pdf/20104030.pdf

Mills, Jonathan and Wolf, Patrick, The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement after Four Years (May 10, 2019). EDRE Working Paper No. 2019-10, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3376230 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3376230

Raymond, M. E., & et, al. (2023, June 19). As a matter of fact: The National Charter School Study III 2023. CREDO. https://ncss3.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Credo-NCSS3-Report.pdf

Waddington, R.J. and Berends, M. (2018), Impact of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program: Achievement Effects for Students in Upper Elementary and Middle School. J. Pol. Anal. Manage., 37: 783-808. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22086

Second, regardless of inherent biases, we should all agree that the measured changes in children’s school performance has generally not been very large. Even where there are clear and significant improvements in reading, math, or science scores, drilling down into the data often reveals that only a portion of the overall group in the study experienced that benefit while high percentages demonstrated either no benefit or a negative benefit. In other words, only a percentage of the participating children benefit and only a portion of the participating schools demonstrate positive changes. In fact, some show a decline in test scores versus the norm.

Third, after reading several research reports, we should all acknowledge that school choice comes in a wide variety of forms. The multitude of factors such as how the money is transferred from government to parent (vouchers, tax credits, educational savings accounts) and the educational entities doing the education (charter schools, private schools, homeschools, or magnet schools) means that school choice cannot be considered as a single method of reform. Therefore, basing the projections of a Tennessee program’s success off of other states’ records is like saying the Philadelphia Phillies will win their baseball game because the New York Yankees won their game the day before. Simply implementing a statewide school choice program and expecting it to work like a panacea is simplistic and naïve.

Fourth, while the listed article “School Choice Primarily Benefits Students Who Weren’t Already in Private Schools” by the Heritage Foundation attempts to refute allegations that school choice primarily helps those already in private schools, they do not completely remove this concern (Greene 2023). Their statistical analysis does correct some other reports’ overestimations of how many school choice recipients in Arizona, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin had already been in non-public schools. However, two facts remain. On one hand, in those states and in Florida (they do not address Florida statistics), a sizable number of program recipients were already outside of public schools even if it is not a majority as the original statistics were claimed. Florida reports indicate that 69 percent of those newly receiving school vouchers had already been in private schools before vouchers were available. On the other hand, other studies indicate that only a portion of the schools evaluated in studies show a statistically significant improvement in reading or math or other scores used for comparison. In other words, becoming a school choice recipient does not somehow magically guarantee a child’s future success in school or life.

In summary of evaluating whether or not school choice serves as a panacea for our national educational decline, I have to agree with the National Affairs article by Franklin Hess in 2010. Mr. Hess describes how school choice (also called “Educational Choice” or EdChoice) advocates have overpromised from the early days when President Reagan and contemporaries promoted this as a primary solution. Such examples of overpromising while underdelivering in reality continue today. While we can identify some studies that show some benefits for some students in some schools, ultimately school choice does not solve all our problems for all our students in all situations. We need more proof of success before throwing more and more money after such hyped up schemes or else we just sound like public school advocates who keep lobbying for more and more money to fix their broken system. We see how far that has gotten us so far as educational spending soars while scores plummet.

Tomorrow we finish with Part 4, “Unintended Consequences” with a conclusion to the whole series.

Bibliography LINK

Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Strings – Part 2 of 4

December 29, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts Family, School, Tennessee Legislation

(Having introduced the topic of school vouchers in Part 1, I move the the first reason parents of all types should reject school vouchers.”)

Free money is never free when the government writes the check. There are always strings attached when the government offers money directly or pays for a program serving their public. When it comes to education, there are varieties of such strings which parents of both homeschoolers and private schoolers should consider before accepting these proposed educational savings accounts (ESA). While the vague and broad term, “accountability”, encompasses the big picture of our leaders’ mindset towards their money giveaway, other more focused terms fill in some details of what “accountability” to the government for these ESA’s looks like. These include regulations, registration, pre-approval processes, standardized testing, and curriculum choices at the very least. The final string that often binds the tightest at the end is the reality of non-discrimination laws especially if any of the money comes from the federal government.

With the debate heating up over whether or not such school choice is bad or good, we first hear from the public school advocates like teachers, administrators, and teacher’s unions that the public must have accountability. We, the citizens of such a state concerned about their children’s future, cannot tolerate the thought that our tax money could be spent without such accountability for how it is spent and the results of the spending. This is a natural inclination shared by most citizens of any state and is echoed by the very legislators contemplating and publicly commenting on the possibility of this bill. We have heard state representative Sam Whitson here in Williamson County state on record that of course we must have accountability (Marshall 2023). Others are likewise repeating this “accountability” refrain here and there so no one gets the wrong idea that we would hand out free money to parents without watching how they spend it. Therefore, we have both the political left and the political right playing the same music on their string theory of “accountability”.

This string theory sounds reasonable to most of us who know the history of what happens when no one watches how government money is spent. The Tennessean article by Campbell et al describes some of the shenanigans already occurring with the money going to Tennessee charter schools. Rather than recount the instances of known fraud in that article, I turn to the regulations intended to prevent such fraud. No one wants our taxpayer money to be wasted on such fraud, so we attach regulations on how this money can be spent. Some current and past examples of school choice related regulations gives us some concrete examples.

In Missouri, their school choice program included several regulations for homeschooling families which will likely rub us the wrong way. In order to receive the government funding for their homeschool education, parents had to agree to the following. They had to enroll with an Educational Assistance Organization who would monitor the spending of their money and their child’s progress. Anyone over the age of 18 years old who lived in the home had to permit a background check with the State Highway Patrol. Annual standardized testing, paid for by the parent, was required. The state’s treasury department would track the child’s demographics and grades. They would have a yearly audit of how the parents spent the money. The program included hotline anonymous reporting systems which anyone could report your alleged fraud, potentially triggering surprise audits of parental spending. Even after the child graduated, their future educational achievement would be tracked for years. Both Democrats and Republicans required this level of accountability from Missouri parents simply wanting to homeschool their children with the government’s money. In this example from Missouri, we see the unavoidable necessity for homeschoolers to register with the state and submit to their intrusive oversight with implications for testing requirement, curriculum choices, and religious liberty implications enforced with monetary restrictions.

Kirsten Lombard described the situation in Wisconsin for private schools who accepted voucher students with this string money in which those voucher-connected students must take common core assessments in order to participate in the voucher program. She argues strongly that as these required common-core based tests continue, the participating schools will be forced to administer such tests to all students. She presses the logic that the cost of maintaining two data systems for student tracking and the need to prove performance will require putting all the school’s children into the testing process. While Tennessee superficially claims to have rejected common core and other progressive curriculum like Critical Race Theory, we know that these philosophies continue to be promoted under different names and disguises. Standardized testing becomes the open door for these curricular influences.

We can see that Mrs. Lombards predictions have been born out by a few examples. In New York, the system of Jewish schools called “yeshivas” operated for years as private schools but began accepting state funds through school choice legislation. When the government was not satisfied with the schools’ outcomes, an investigation into the schools resulted in the schools being forced to comply with common core standards.

We also see that beyond forced curriculum and standardized testing, homeschoolers and private schools face other regulatory restrictions in what can be taught by those receiving state funding. In Maryland a Christian school was forced to defend its right to express a Biblical view of marriage as between one man and one woman. Initially the school was told it could no longer receive voucher funding (Kookogey 2019). Then it was told that it would have to pay back $100,000 of funds it had already received. (Perkins 2019). Eventually, a judge sanely ruled that the school had religious liberty to express such a Biblical view without forfeiting access to these voucher funds, but 1 to 2 years was spent in limbo before the case was finally settled in 2021, having started in 2019 (Gryboski 2021). While this school did win in the end, not all schools may be able to sustain such a legal battle and win.

Other examples of providing such funding but later taking it back can be seen in other states. In Nevada the original legislation excluded a requirement for standardized testing of participating students. Once passed, the state board of education added a requirement for private school families to administer yearly standardized testing. The promised freedom in the passed bill was quickly taken away before the program was even implemented. This occurred despite the fact that the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dale Erquiaga, testified before the Senate Committee on Revenue and Economic Development that no such requirement would be implemented. While homeschooling families in Nevada can still forgo such standardized testing, their acceptance of state funding requires opting into this yearly testing according to Nevada legal code. NRS 388.100-140 – OPT-IN CHILDREN

West Virginia serves as another example where initial freedoms were almost stolen back from homeschool parents. The state passed a 2021 school choice law in which homeschoolers had worked hard to enshrine legal protections for homeschoolers, thinking they had won, at least in 2021. They made sure no regulations would be placed on homeschoolers who did not accept the offered money. Only two years later, West Virginia legislators proposed a bill that would remove the safeguards and lump all homeschoolers into the same regulations by the state regardless of whether or not they took the “bribe”, (I mean voucher money). Ultimately, this legislation was defeated, but once acquired freedoms are never truly safe as long as legislators believe they should control every aspect of a child’s education rather than leaving it to the parent’s discretion.

In summary and support of this string theory of puppeteering the world of private schooling and homeschooling, these examples could be enough to convince you, but the Cato Institute which offers some support for school choice had to admit this regulatory burden. In a study looking at whether school voucher programs increased the regulations on private schools, they concluded that yes, this state funding source did exactly that. In their words:

“Voucher programs are associated with large and highly statistically significant increases in the regulatory burden imposed on private schools (compared to schools not participating in choice programs). And this relationship is, more likely than not, causal.”

Apparently, the string theory of government control of private schooling options through school vouchers is more than a theory, but closer to reality than we should feel comfortable with.

Tomorrow, Part 3 – Failures

Full Bibliography LINK

Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Part 1 of 4

December 28, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts Family, School, Tennessee Legislation

“Let’s stop and rethink the definition of public education,” she said. “Today it is often defined as one type of school funded by taxpayers, controlled by government. But, if every student is part of the public, then every way and every place a student learns is ultimately of benefit to the public,” DeVos continued. “That should be the new definition of public education.” — Betsy DeVos quoted by Jesse in Detroit Free Press.

As of December 2023, twenty states have some form of school choice expansion underway in which parents can choose their child’s school beyond accepting the local district where they live. According to Betsy DeVos, former Secretary of Education and early proponent of school choice, this opportunity benefits both the child and the public. This seems like a win-win situation until you read the fine print written boldly, “if every student is part of the public”. The outworking of her new definition coalesces all education under the umbrella of government influence while purporting to free children from the government run public school system.

This effort has been underway in Tennessee for a number of years as evidenced by the money trail described in a prior essay (LINK) and is attempting to cross the tipping point with Governor Lee’s current Educational Freedom visionary proposal. Having taken root in the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement act of 2022 (TISA), when it passed limited school choice for Memphis and Nashville schools, Governor Lee hopes to include the whole of Tennessee in school choice beyond these two districts. Much concern and dismay has been publicized over the state of our public schools for years, but the post 2020 shutdown aftereffects are being used as the final straw to push our state over the threshold. While proclaiming freedom, school choice advocates are in reality enticing those already enjoying educational freedom to submit their children and their schools to government regulation. In exchange for some students escaping broken and failing schools, public money will be pumped into the private education system, radically altering it with the inevitable strings of government funding.

Promoters of school choice claim that those who could afford private school or homeschool have opportunities not open to many less fortunate children trapped in public school systems. These escapees from the system left because they saw the problems of our public schools and wanted to be free from its grasp and adverse effects. Homeschoolers particularly valued this freedom as they forsook not only the public side of education, but the paradigm of mass education solely in age segregated classrooms steeped in failing modern educational methods. We (homeschoolers) recognized that the system was broken not only in where it took place (public schools) and in who ran it (government) but in the forms and objectives of modern educational philosophies. The public schools were not only physically unsafe for many student, but intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually unsafe as they strive to now create woke global citizens rather than moral, productive, and mature men and women in community.

As Tennessee contemplates our Governor’s proposed solution for the broken public school system, we must evaluate whether such a solution actually seeks to solve the problem at the root of the brokenness or is just a band-aid that allows the deeper rottenness to continue. The proponents claim that this will give those students who currently do not have opportunities to leave the system, equal options to current private and homeschool children. They express seemingly sincere concern that such trapped children are being held back academically by deprivation of opportunity and harmed physically in unsafe school districts. They reassure everyone else that these educational savings accounts as the foundation for the Governor’s Education Freedom bill will not restrict nor hinder anyone else’s educational freedoms. They thus claim that this is pure milk chocolate, sweet as honey for all with no bitter aftertaste for anyone.

While many studies do indicate that parents of children who are enabled to leave dangerous or otherwise failing schools express higher satisfaction with the new schools, is this sufficient reason to accept the negative aspects? While some studies show a mild academic benefit for lower income children who escape the public schools, does this justify the cost and clear downsides of the system? Many conservatives will join in the calls for school choice believing that they can minimize the damage that the public schools are causing for our next generation, but again, what price are we paying and are we really diminishing the influence of the government on schooling?

In evaluating this proposal, we must take into consideration three likely negative aspects of the bill as well as its potential positive impacts. First, as with any government funding, strings will be attached to the money and thus to those who accept the money whether the parents or the schools in the program. This will be called “accountability”, but ultimately places the government in control of your child’s education. Second, we should measure the success of school choice by their promised outcomes. If they want more children to have more opportunities and better life outcomes, then we should evaluate currently active school choice programs by these measures. Third, as with any major policy enactment, we will find secondary and tertiary effects that may be unexpected and/or unwanted. Proponents may argue that such downsides are “unintended” but worth the cost, but we should count the cost and determine for ourselves if we want to pay these delayed payments in other impacted areas.

Tomorrow, Part 2, Reason #1 “Strings”

Bibliography for entire series.

Be the Opposition to School Choice

December 27, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts School, Tennessee Legislation

(Interspersing a series on School choice in the midst of my series on Mental Health Crisis solutions.)

“We should experiment in the states with a number of governance arrangements, leverage these laboratories of democracy, and see what works,” asserted Marc Magee, sociologist and founder of the 50Can advocacy organization, discussing the viability of the standard school district structures for promoting excellence in education.” (Smarick 2023).

While he spoke thus over a decade ago, he is using the same kind of language today regarding the education of your children- experiment, reimagine, innovate and words such as these can be found throughout 50CAN’s website and blogs. In a recent 2023 example, you can read about Mr. Magee’s desire to experiment with AI in the education of your children. He wants to see educational efforts put forth in “continuing to experiment with AI, which has evolved so much since we first looked at ChatGPT seven months ago” (Magee 2023). As a self-proclaimed admirer of public education in its first 100 years (until the 1970’s), Mr. Magee has styled himself and his organization as leaders in advocacy for public education innovation (experimentation) at the state level repeatedly expressing a desire to harness “new” and here-to-for private methods of education like micro-schools and homeschools by using public money-which of course means public accountability (TNCAN 2023, Smarick 2023). Even today in Tennessee, 50CAN, known as TennesseeCAN in our state, is moving forward, working with our elected representatives promoting continual educational innovation- or shall we say educational experimentation.

According to 50CAN, educational experimentation plans move forward in large part through political advocacy, and therefore, they have established an advocacy model and developed training programs over the last decade. Mr. Magee and others have released a short booklet with a long title called A Little Opposition is a Good Thing and Other Lessons from the Science of Advocacy (Magee 2019). It highlights themes from academic research covering revolutionary movements and political change movements across the span of modernity. In this 66-page booklet, recommended choices for advocates working in the various states are laid out. In our case, here in Tennessee, it appears that some of those tactics are already being used in growing a public campaign for universal school vouchers and attempting to gain support for their yet to be revealed legislation.

In this booklet, the first lesson reads, “A little opposition is a good thing.” In this section, the writers assert that the literature shows that indifference to a change issue more accurately predicts political failure than opposition to that change. Therefore, they recommend that “…. advocates should embrace it [opposition] and use the energy of their opponents to gain attention for their side” (p.11). This may be the tactic we see at play right now given the fanfare accompanying the November announcement of the plan for “Education Freedom” legislation in the upcoming legislative session. In addition, there have been reports of at least one meeting where a TN CAN advocate was present to discuss this legislation with the public. Are they stirring up the energy of the opposition? Pushing the issue to forefront of the upcoming political season and positioning “their” legislators to take a stand on this legislative issue? This booklet would make you think this a distinct possibility.

Another tactic in their advocacy playbook tells “…advocates [to] move quickly to catch the status quo off guard when new innovations emerge, and then pay attention to how their opponents respond to their actions.” Here, indeed they may to be trying to catch us off guard, moving on the universal voucher (school choice) issue before the current charter school experiments in places like Memphis and Nashville have had time to mature thereby disrupting plans. In addition, the universal aspect of this proposal has direct implications for homeschoolers in Tennessee who have enjoyed a good measure of stability and freedom over the last few decades. Further, this sudden disruption of the status quo gives advocacy groups insight into the opposition coming from various sides of the political aisle. They can watch this gauging their next political move while they themselves have not provided any concrete plans in the form of an actual bill. Instead, the parents and citizens of Tennessee have been left with more questions than answers when it comes to this sweeping but rather general proposal. Perhaps the instability of the proposal itself seen in such early promises of “no strings” morphing somehow into an assurance for “accountability” or “strings” with the use of public money is a part of the political drama enacted upon us for their informational benefit. Is the chaos of this proposal intentional? Again, their small booklet with a long name makes one wonder.

In yet another advocacy tip, the booklet proposes that befriending legislators and being a reliable informational resource tend to produce desired political change for an issue. Apparently, the advocates in Tennessee have been working on these relationships for several years (see their yearly TN Policy Report Cards going back to 2015). According to their literature, the advocates or lobbyists best serve their cause by “…working as an extension of the staff of aligned elected officials. Researchers see this kind of lobbying as a form of government subsidy, where outsiders pay to help elected officials carry out the elected officials’ own plans.” Evidently considering themselves as staff members of our elected officials (yet without direct accountability to the people), they claim to be writing the legislation behind closed doors (information received from people attending their meeting). Who did we elect to make the laws? Advocacy groups like 50CAN, funded by billionaires? OR state senators and representatives accountable to the citizens of Tennessee? (LINK TO PRIOR WPWL ARTICLE)

The observations above along with information found in 50CAN’s own website and literature may give us insight into what we see being enacted in Tennessee as the legislative session nears, and now the parents of Tennessee find themselves in the following situation. We have a major media announcement by our Governor of plans for sweeping changes to education funding in our state. Funding using public money to pay for private services. However, the bill itself does not yet exist and is reportedly being crafted by an unelected advocacy agency (or perhaps agencies) behind closed doors. Many of our elected officials, including the sponsor himself, express ignorance of the bill’s contents to date and have only made some general comments about what it might say. Many legislators refuse to take a stand one way or another on the issue since no bill has been proposed or work out thus far. Additionally, we are likely being played by well-funded agencies like 50CAN who are using their advocacy playbook moves to try to gain the upper hand so that they can add our children to their grand sociological experiment funded by billionaires and elitists.

Indeed, as parents in Tennessee, we must be the opposition they are looking for. We must strongly oppose any form of public money funding any form of private education in our state, particularly in the form of universal vouchers “given” by the very government that broke the system in the first place. We must say “NO” to experimentation with our children, and think Biblically on this issue. The family is accountable to God and His truth in providing for their children’s worldview and education- public money makes us legally accountable to the state and its worldview. These public monies proposals do not move us forward but backward in family and parental freedom to choose.

While groups like 50Can (TNCAN) may run their advocacy plays upon the legislators and the citizenry, Tennessee parents must be clear. We will not allow sociologists and elitists to experiment with our children or take away our private choice. Be the wise and prepared opposition. Protect your children and protect your family’s educational choices otherwise the proposed universal School Choice experiment could end up becoming a loss of all choice leaving everyone with only State Choice.

Citations:

Magee, M. P. (2019, October). A Little Opposition is a Good Thing and Other Lessons from the Science of Advocacy. 50CAN.org. https://50can.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2019/09/Science-of-Advocacy-2019.pdf

Magee  , M. P. (2023, November 19). The New Reality Roundup – Round 190. 50CAN National. https://50can.org/blog/the-new-reality-roundup-week-190

Research reports. TennesseeCAN. (2023, December 15). https://tn-can.org/research-and-resources/research/

Smarick, A. (n.d.). By the company it keeps: Marc Porter Magee. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute. https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/company-it-keeps-marc-porter-magee

Tennessee CAN. (2022). 2022 TENNESSEE POLICY REPORT CARD. https://tn-can.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/12/FINAL_TNCAN-2023-PolicyReportCard-web-compressed.pdf

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 5 of 11: Continuing a Root Cause Search

December 26, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Papers Mental Health, Tennessee Legislation

(We continue to consider potential root causes contributors to the mental health crisis as begun in the prior installment.)

Simultaneously with these economic forces, many today are entering the work force with a strong desire and expectation to achieve work-life balance. Maybe their parents’ example of overworking for years leaves them with a longing for time and experiences of life outside the office. Maybe they have been told that they can have their cake and eat it too in terms of work success and extracurricular fulfilment. They often expect the benefits and wages of having invested years in a position at the very beginning of a career and may become disillusioned or resentful when those rewards are not forthcoming soon enough. The basic requirements for productive employment collide with the desires for a fulfilled life to create another source of stress. Their responses of angst or wanderlust for something better creates stress for both them and the businesses they work for.

Again, many hope that achieving such a balance will bring mental wellness and fulfillment. The realities of our fallen world places great obstacles in achieving this balance. The striving after such balance creates more stress and magnifies other challenges to mental health. Sacrifices must be made to achieve such balance, often leaving these life balance seekers looking for more. They too must go further upstream to find mental wellness. That upstream insight, which can only come from a spiritual view of reality, can then guide them in overcoming the obstacles they wish to overcome.

With more information to process, more work to do, and more challenges to pursuing life fulfillment, some of us can find ourselves giving less attention to our physical well-being. For some work leaves less time or less energy to exert our bodies in activities that not only make us feel better physically, but could improve our mental health (many studies support this). Given the reality of aging and the reality of bodily dysfunction in a fallen world, lack of attention to our physical health will eventually reduce our capacity to handle the demands of life.

Even for those who press past the challenges, devoting the time to their physical health which leads to what society considers physical fitness, this only touches on the surface of the mental health crisis. Healthy bodies contribute to healthy emotions but are not enough to guarantee it. Going upstream from physical fitness into whole person fitness is still required. A proper view of physical fitness will lead to a proper response to caring for the whole person, body and spirit.

The pressures of life can also leave us with less time to gather with family or friends, thus resulting in less emotional support that could protect against threats to mental health. Having others who provide perspective on life’s challenges, even if they just offer sympathy, empathy, and compassion makes the stress less burdensome. Having relationships which provide tangible support when jobs fail or when financial hardship hits means that the stressed individual is protected from falling into mental illness. In contrast, not having such relationships creates a sense of isolation which amplifies the stress rather than limiting its effects.

Between the closing down of churches during the pandemic and the fracturing of many churches over politics and social issues, the fabric of life which held society and individuals together is wearing thin and giving way for many of us. Social isolation has become all too common, preventing many from meeting their inborn need to socialize. The societal safety nets of church, community, and government programs which try to catch the individuals who fall into mental illness cannot presently bear the weight of so many who are finding themselves on such life downward spirals.

Simply bringing these isolated people physically together would seem a promising approach, but so many attest to the feeling of greatest loneliness in the midst of a crowd. Many are already surrounded by other people yet feel quite lonely and isolated. Being located physically together does not guarantee a sense of belonging together. The connection must go further upstream, although the increasing isolation does need a response. Again, incorporating a spiritual view of reality is required.

In the background of technology changes, work demands, life fulfillment expectations, and social isolation, society has devalued family as a foundation of society’s functioning. The attempt of a revolutionary mindset to be discussed in the next section has attempted to undermine a traditional view of family and either restructure it or destabilize it into non-existence. Families physically spread out at greater and greater distances thanks to the higher educational system and the world of labor. Families spread out socially as teens are socialized to become their own person without regard to their parent’s legacy and beliefs. Families spread out in what they stand for as the old-fashioned husband and wife with children are replaced by whatever combination of men, women, children, animals, or even inanimate objects. The stabilizing force of family cohesion dissipates as each spreading out weakens the family structure and its supporting function. Divorces multiply. Depression and anxiety grow. Children grow up without models or support to overcome their life struggles. They grow into adults unable to withstand the pressures of life, succumbing to more and mental illness unless some other force intervenes.

Many groups strongly emphasize a restoration of the family as an answer to the mental health crisis. While this gets closer to the root as will be discussed in the final section of this series, an upstream answer to what is family and how to bring the family back together is required. Restoring family as a foundational aspect of society requires a response, but is not the whole work of untangling the knot. A restoration of family must include a spiritual understanding of what family is.

As if we needed one more factor, we have the pressure which the government has forced upon us in its constant attempt to help us and protect us from ourselves. While laws to limit sinful behaviors are needed to an extent, the extent to which government attempts to control can become a burden rather than a protection. State and federal governments have a role in maintaining civil order, but their demand for the “rights” of real and imagined minorities again creates undue burdens on individuals and businesses. Requiring handicapped access is one thing, but forcing compliance with immoral beliefs so that someone does not feel triggered by differing views goes too far. The “Nanny State” has long moved from the mirage of a doting lady watching over little ones into the specter of a controlling and aggressive tyrant bent on micromanaging what it thinks is best for everyone else. Rather than offering relief from the burdens of modern life, this “nanny state” mentality intensifies these pressures of life and destabilizes the natural supports of family, church, and community.

Still many others bemoan the growing influence of the government in contributing to life stress and thus to mental illness. They focus on getting government out of the way which is another basic issue, but this still leaves factors unaddressed. Mankind without any restraint leads to anarchy. Finding the proper role of government requires us to again go upstream in exploring the purpose of government and its role in our lives. We must respond to government’s contributions to the mental health crisis, but we must do so with a clearer and more robust worldview than just wanting the government to leave us alone. Examining government and its role through a spiritual lens is required.

Each of these materialistically oriented factors contribute to the dysfunctions of society leading to mental illness but biological factors impacting our mental health deserve their moments in the spotlight as well before going upstream. We must momentarily consider the toxicity of our fallen world in terms of the living environment which we are creating for ourselves.

While the technological, social, and other factors are contributing to stresses and overburdening human limitations, the physical environment we are fashioning around ourselves as individuals and as a society is eroding our bodies’ abilities to withstand such stressors. In the quest for the next technological breakthrough, chemicals are often produced which disrupt the normal functioning of our bodies. The resulting inflammation, changes in metabolism, changes in brain function, changes in hormones, and more all alter our homeostasis, or balance of biochemical functions. Our resilience to withstand the other previously mentioned stressors is diminished as conscious and unconscious resources are diverted to the effects of these toxins. Besides the technologically produced toxins, our desire for aesthetics and youth drives the market demand for personal care products and cosmetics industries which introduce even more potential biochemical disruptors into our bodies. Besides these chemicals we breathe and put on our skin, we have created a whole world of food additives to preserve shelf life, enhance flavor, and make food more colorful. We then eat and drink to our own detriment from the formulations of the processed food industry. Our physical bodies are presently challenged as never before, and we wonder why we are struggling so much with overall worsening health, including negative impacts on mental health.

Removing toxins and sources of inflammation from our diet and our environment would definitely help but only so far. Removing these triggers for mental and physical illness would make us feel better, but still does not guarantee mental wellness when so many other factors are present. We must go upstream in not only finding the toxins, but understanding how we view our environment and how we view the stewardship of our bodies. We can respond correctly only with these improved understandings.

When we look up on this materialistically focused description of the potential root causes of the mental health crisis, we could feel a little hopeless. Technological advances and their impact on how we live appear inevitable. Inflation and the economic pressures of work life versus life goals seem unavoidable. The breakdown of family seems to continue unabated. The prospects of government’s increasing control of our daily life seems unstoppable. Environmental toxins appear to be encircling every area of life. These physical factors are at their core, just sources of more and more stress. Living in a fallen world will necessarily impress some elements of these or other stressors upon us. Remove one source and others will fill in the gaps. Pushing back on these societal changes mostly just creates more stress when one person or one family tries to live counterculture to everyone else around them. Addressing any one of these only untangles one little loop of the knot and their interconnectedness makes a potential starting point impossible to find. Rather than trying to simultaneously untangle all of these contributors plus others not mentioned, we must look upstream. If we can move upstream in the factors to something that underlies multiple of the previously listed ones, we can find a common source which when addressed would solve these factors as whole rather than in parts.

(In the next installment, we move upstream to look for spiritual root causes of the mental health crisis.)

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 4 of 11: Looking for Root Causes

December 20, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Papers Mental Health, Tennessee Legislation

(Having examined the mental health crisis from various angles in the prior two essays…”

Third, once the big picture view has solidified as much as possible in our mind, we must think logically in terms of causality and find what led us to this current state so we can start at the right place to untangle the mental health knot. Working past the superficial statistical and diagnostic layer, we need to understand the factors leading the collective society to these diagnoses and descriptions. To solve problems and lower statistics, we must aim at deeper changes than just these numbers. In medicine, we regularly consider whether genetics or the environment are contributing to a disease we are treating or diagnosing. In functional medicine, we search deeper for root causes, the deepest factor underlying a disease process which when addressed allows the body to move towards healing and restoration. Here in the broader world of mental health across communities, states, and our nation, we need the same effort towards root cause analysis. By understanding how our child’s shoelaces came to the present state and by asking the right questions we can simplify and accelerate the actual un-entanglement. Although the present complexity of mental health in our society immeasurably surpasses that of tangled shoelaces, identifying the contributing factors logically and chronologically for either challenge is required to formulate hopeful solutions.

Hints of contributing factors and candidates for root causes have already been seen in the prior examination of the big picture. We have societal changes which are impacting upon human capacities and expectations. Individuals and their various groups cannot sustain the weight of this burden being expected of them. Human beings have limits in time, energy, knowledge, emotional capacity, mental capacity, physical capacity, and resources among other limits. As our society seems to be pressing higher and higher levels of stress upon us, eventually the stress and burdens of life will overcome these limits. Life for many has become one big multitasking juggling act in which technological advancements, work demands, life fulfillment expectations, lack of self-care and relationship attention, isolation, family breakdown, and governmental pressures have combined with many other factors to push people over their edges into mental illness. This is layered on top of physiologic burdens of tons of toxic chemicals pouring into our world daily. However, despite their individual and collective contributions to the mental health tangled knot, none of these contributing factors actually get to the root of the problem.

Instead of serving as a root cause directly, each of these can be traced back to our spiritual view of physical reality which is where the untangling of the knot must begin. If you agree, then you can proceed to the spiritual explanation. If you are unsure or disagree, take the time to read the remainder of this section and better understand why the materially directed approach to untangling the knot only addresses portions of the tangle at a superficial level without going deep enough to address the knot as a whole.

Each of these materialistically focused contributors deserve some elaboration here. First, the hastening speed of technology drives our lives both at work and at home to accomplish more and more, while it promises to make our lives easier. Although technology has enabled us to do things unheard in generations past, technology also creates situations where are forced to move faster in more directions. Multiple lines of communication such as texting, multiple emails, and other instant messaging, on top of phone and face to face means we sometimes have multiple conversations going simultaneously. As technology moves faster, we no longer have the luxury of thinking for a time as we wait for computers to process or for others to respond. Now the multiple lines of communication can be rapid fire back and forth. This is difficult enough at work to keep up with. Even in our personal life with text or other messaging services, we feel awkward if a message is left unanswered for a few minutes. We can feel ghosted – and stressed — if someone misses an email for 3 days and doesn’t respond.

The amount of information we can access through the internet and smartphones can also overwhelm us. Knowing more about what is happening in another country where we can do nothing about the depressing news can lead to anxiety and hopelessness. This can later lead to guilt and regret. Simultaneously, excessive access and attention to the broader world’s events may draw us away from time with family and face to face friends leading to isolation and more shallow relationships. This can increase your sense of isolation.

These communication expectations are compounded by expectations that we should be accomplishing so much more given this technology. We expect greater returns from our time which is stressful on already stressed human capacities, and this makes us more heavily dependent on these technologies. We may keep up for a time until this technology falters. The complexity of technological advances then means that we need more experts to fix overly complex electronics or programs. The days of fixing something yourself are becoming rarer and rarer. Instead of being empowered by the technologies, we can become trapped by them. Emotionally the stress from needing the technology to meet our own and other’s expectations can outweigh the increased capacities they offer. Life with the technology can become more stressed than life prior to the technology.

While we could push back directly against technology in various ways, this approach has minimal chance of significant impact. The world around us continues to depend on technology’s present contributions to daily life and excitedly awaits the next innovation. We can develop better patterns of interaction with technology, but the impact will only go so deep as an individual effort. A clear strategy against the onslaught of technology requires a deeper understanding so that we know how to respond to inevitable changes to society brought on by technological advances. Ignoring the problem or responding with a simplistic approach will only make it worse. This deeper understand demands a spiritual view of reality.

Beyond the effects of technology on the demands of work life, several general economic factors and trends are combining to increase the pressure of contemporary life. To some degree the rising cost of living due to rising inflation presses upon nearly everyone. As a result of competing for these tightening budget’s expenditures, businesses are constantly working on efficiency and productivity leads to requiring more and more of employees. In the world of big business, many employees become little more than a cog in the machinery of the 100’s, or even 1000’s of employees who can be replaced at the drop of a hat. The pressures of having to work more and work harder to keep up the family economy while recognizing that your company’s leaders could replace you with a hundred others willing to do the same work can create a lot of stress, increasing the pressure for developing mental illness.

While we could voice louder and louder protest against the rising costs of living brought on not just by our human desire for more, but also by the clear mismanagement of our economy by government, this will not change the momentum of society. We can implement better budgets and set more realistic expectations for what we can afford, but at some point, we will cut all the excess and inefficiencies yet still face the need to work harder and longer for the basics of life. We must look at the economics of life that lead to inflation from an upstream viewpoint as well as understanding the purpose and function of labor in the flow of life. Only by taking a spiritual view of these realities can we respond in a deeper and longer-lasting way that offers hope of providing for ourselves and others.

(The next installment of this series will continue to examine these stressors)

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 3 of 11: Further Perspectives

December 18, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Papers Mental Health, Tennessee Legislation

(Continuing the examination of the mental health crisis from part 2 of this series.)

Looking next to the functional angle of mental illness’s impact, we see societal statistics describing how such illness alters one’s ability to function at home or in society as well from the personal angle. Considering marriage and its success rate as a good indicator of a person’s functioning in the home setting, survey results by researchers suggest that mental illness both decreases the incidence of marriage as well as increases the rate of its failure in divorce rates. In the report published in the Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavia (Breslau 2011), researchers described their findings from a 19-country survey. All mental disorders studied demonstrated an increased odds ratio of 1.2 to 1.8, meaning a 20 to 80% increase in divorce. The negative impact of mental illness on life’s closest relationship of marriage can likely be extrapolated to other personal relationship struggles.

The ability of those with mental illness to function in broader society can be extrapolated from their capacity to handle employment. In an online publication by Psychiatric Services, Luciano and Meara report how the severity of mental illness impacted employment rates. Looking at data from a survey in 2009-2010, they found that while those without mental illness reported an employment rate of 75.9%, those serious mental illness reported only a 54.5% rate. Beyond this statistic, the percent of survey respondents with serious mental illness that reported incomes under $10,000 per year was 38.5% while it was only 23.1% in those without mental illness. From the positive angle, this shows that many individuals suffering with mental illness are pushing through and working under the burden of their illness, yet it does demonstrate that many appear hindered from life functioning by their condition.

At the personal level experienced by many of us, our own or our families’ struggles in mental health have hindered our functioning at these same levels of life. Other family members have had to step in to provide financially or to support others sufficiently so that employment is not lost. Other family members have dealt with the aftermath consequences of marriage discord and divorce. While mental illness is not required for divorce, when it is a part of the divorce, the challenges of life post-divorce family dynamics can be even more challenging for all involved. In each situation you live through or are living through, the shared weight lies heavy on many shoulders.

The spiritual angle completes the view that most people should consider in understanding the scope and magnitude of the mental health crisis. Examples of clearly sinful behavior which are known to correlate with future mental illness include abortion, drugs and alcohol abuse, and homosexuality. We must come to some conclusions of how to view mental illness in terms of sin as both a contributing factor for the person and in response to the person. On one hand, the majority who see little or no spiritual component to mental illness promote a dangerous and simplistic approach. They ignore this critical spiritual portion of the problem and thus undermine any hope of fully resolving it. By denying any spiritual component, they make guilt and shame challenging to deal with while preventing the adequate handling of sinful behaviors which contribute to the mental illness.

On the other hand, there are some who might lump any or all mental illness into the category of sin or its effects. This simplistic approach makes it easier in one sense to respond to all mental illness with a “repent and change your attitude”. So much harm is done by those in this camp as they ignore the factors already discussed as well as more to be discussed in the next section.

Between these two extremes, from those acknowledging the contribution of spiritual factors come a variety of potentially sinful options for responding to other’s mental illness. While lack of compassion for the weaker brother can lead to sinful responses, overindulgence of one’s sinful behavior can also hinder efforts to overcome such patterns of sin. Sometimes between these extremes, the emotional impacts of mental illness on friends and family may lead them to respond out of frustration, despair, or anger further amplifying the impact of sinful behavior and deepening a cycle for everyone involved. These sinfully inappropriate responses can further exacerbate both the depth of the mental illness and the obstacles to overcoming it.

Instead, we must consider a Biblical view of how we should respond individually and societally. When approaching an individual’s mental illness, the contribution of spiritual factors to the illness must be considered for full resolution. Then the societal response, whether at the level of a family, a community or a church as well as the national level, must not ignore these spiritual factors if a proper and successful response is to be implemented. A better approach of addressing the sufferer’s condition in the context of family and as a church will be discussed later.

As a physician caring for many of these individuals suffering with or without actual mental illness diagnoses, I can add a further angle combining both personal and professional. I look at the reported statistics on the increase in mental illness and can believe it as more patients present for evaluation in my office of these conditions. Simultaneously, we are seeing more of the secondary physical complaints mentioned earlier in terms of chronic pain syndromes, irritable bowel type complaints, insomnia, and more. We see how patients’ relationships are affected by their mental health symptoms as well as how they are struggling to function at home or at work. For those willing to discuss the spiritual aspect, we hear their guilt and shame for not living up to other’s expectations along with their occasional despair in feeling alone or losing hope of recovery. While we should never base a societal level response on the report of one doctor’s experience, my professional experience echoes the statistics being reported and I hear similar stories from other providers directly and indirectly. I agree that we have a growing problem that is not being adequately addressed.

Before we give up hope of such an exhaustive understanding and return to the simplistic solutions offered by the world, we should recognize that omniscience concerning the mental health crisis is not the goal, but sufficient understanding so that we can eventually move towards a solution to the crisis that has a chance of success. While we will never be able to identify and to fully understand the totality of factors contributing to even one person’s diagnosis of mental illness, we can understand enough about the nature of the individual’s condition or the societal patterns that we can plan and enact a response. Understanding the root causes in the next section will overcome the immensity of the big picture and allow an appropriate response. For now, if you want more statistics on the impact of mental illness on functioning, go to The National Alliance of Mental Illness website on its “Mental Health By the Numbers” page where many insightful statistics are offered. Statistics and experience show a growing problem. The situation affects mental, physical, relational (isolation), spiritual and societal health and function. The mental health knot is tightening while civilization unravels.

Having examined the state of mental health from these various angles already encourages us to look for upstream foundational causes of such a complex crisis. Each of these angles offers a different perspective which will lead us in the next section towards finding remediable root causes. The potential causative factors must somehow answer the challenges of these psychiatric, physical, relational, functional, and spiritual angles at the individual and the societal levels. We wean to untangle the whole knotted shoestring of the mental health crisis rather than just a portion of it.

Bibliography:

Breslau, J., et al. “A Multinational Study of Mental Disorders, Marriage, and Divorce.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, vol. 124, no. 6, 30 Apr. 2011, pp. 474–486, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4011132/, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2011.01712.x. Accessed 13 Oct. 2023.

Luciano, Alison, and Ellen Meara. “Employment status of people with mental illness: national survey data from 2009 and 2010.” Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.) vol. 65,10 (2014): 1201-9. doi:10.1176/appi.ps.201300335

National Alliance on Mental Illness. “Mental Health by the Numbers.” NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Apr. 2023, www.nami.org/mhstats. Accessed 13 Sept. 2023.

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 2 of 11: The Nature of the Problem

December 13, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks Mental Health, Tennessee Legislation

(Having confirmed that a mental health crisis exists in America in part 1 of this series, we move to the next step in untangling the knotted shoelaces.)

Second, now that we believe that a real problem exists and that it deserves an adequate response from us as a nation, we must pause to examine the nature of the problem before reflexively reacting. Untying the wrong part of the knot or not seeing the superglue that your child used to hold things together will ultimately only lead to frustrations and failures. In the case of our society’s mental health crisis, we need a better understanding of who is suffering and how they are suffering. Once this picture begins to form in our minds, we should continue investigating until we have uncovered an adequate extent of the problem. The length of this essay precludes such a full extent but those in positions of influence should go beyond this essay’s brevity. From there we can work on root cause understanding in the next step towards a solution.

Once we decide to study a problem like the mental health crisis in greater depth than just whether or not it exists, we must determine how to study such a tangled knot. The sources of information must cover a number of different angles to address an adequate scope. These angles include examinations of psychiatric, physical, relational, functional, and spiritual effects of mental health dysfunction at individual and societal levels. Each of these angles provide an essential view of the problem’s impact and combine to provide a 4-dimensional multi-faceted understanding as these angles interact over time.

The psychiatric angle stands out as the most superficial descriptive level and presents as the diagnostic statistics on one hand and a personal life experience on the other. Medical codes provide labels such as major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, panic disorder, bipolar disorder and more. Each label categorizes a set of symptoms and disease expressions which allow not only tracking of prevalence but also the planning of therapy. This therapy planning begins at the experimental level of determining what therapy works best for different diagnoses and at the individual level where a provider recommends an individual’s approach to recovery. Regardless of labels chosen, at the core, each diagnosis describes an emotional pattern in which a change in one’s thinking or emotions diverges from the accepted normal range sufficiently enough to produce dysfunction in the person’s life. The dysfunction always impacts on the individual with the diagnosis and usually impacts on others around them, leading to a limitation of what the individual can accomplish in life. The dysfunction resulting from large numbers of such individuals plays a major role in labeling this situation as a societal crisis.

As these diagnostic statistics increase, direct experience with those suffering becomes more common and more personal. We either face our own diagnoses or experience them second hand in family members or friends. This may come in the form of lifelong struggles or just a period of life, from months to years, where such a mental health condition impacts us or those we care about. When this occurs over longer periods of time in families, a parent’s or siblings’ diagnosis can beget similar or different diagnoses in the succeeding generations. The stress created from mental illness in one family member can push another into their own mental health diagnosis while leaving less resources to support another family member through their own stressful time. The repetition of mental health illness in families arises from not only their shared genetics, but also from these shared psychosocial factors as well.

The physical angle flows out of considering the contributors to psychiatric diagnoses and moves beyond simple medical statistics or psychosocial factors. This angle considers the two-way street between physical illness and mental illness. On one hand, the onset of mental illness has been shown to be triggered by such physical processes as inflammation, chronic pain, different toxins, some infections, nutritional deficiencies, and clearly genetics as previously mentioned. While each of these potential triggers would each require a book-length explanation, for now we can just appreciate that they individually or cumulatively push their subjects towards mental illness yet less commonly serve as the sole factor in one’s mental illness. Far more frequently, they serve as one more contributing tangle in the person’s mental health knot that needs untangling.

On the other hand, mental illness also drives more physical symptoms and diseases. Several examples demonstrate this secondarily exacerbating contribution of mental illness to physical conditions. Studies indicate the experience of pain, either acute or chronic, frequently increases with states of depression and anxiety. The stress hormones triggered by mental illness can further raise blood pressure contributing to hypertension or raise blood sugar contributing to diabetes. Through a more generalized means of influencing physical conditions, many mental health conditions simply create non-compliance with another condition’s treatment needs either out of despair or direct dysfunction. In these situations, the person with mental illness cannot or does not appropriately care for an otherwise treatable medical condition.

Besides worsening medical diagnoses, mental health has been reported as a primary contributor to several medical diagnoses. These include conditions like irritable bowel disease, insomnia, and headaches. The psychiatric world long ago created the diagnosis of conversion disorder when it believed someone’s psychiatric state was the sole cause of subjective physical symptoms. This condition when applied to any given individual should be used sparingly to avoid unnecessary labeling that prevents identification of a previously unknown physical cause but is still a legitimate diagnosis in a limited number of those with mental illness.

Again, as this number of those with mental illness increases and the severity of their condition begins to impact on these physical conditions, our personal experience hits closer to home. For anyone who has watched a family member suffer more from a medical condition that was exacerbated by their mental illness, the frustration is real. This second person view experience hits home as you watch your loved one struggle more and more but feel unable to truly help them. Watching someone in the throes of despair due to mental illness as they mishandle necessary medical therapy multiples the sense of helplessness for this second person. However, when you are the one in the midst of the mental health dysfunction, you may not be able to hear and apply what your loved ones are telling you. You may even believe them when they say there is hope with proper therapy, but still not be able to follow through. Diagnoses and statistics have their role in studying mental illness, but at the root, it still comes down to the reality of individuals and those around them suffering from these diagnoses in real life.

The relational angle of approaching mental illness also travels a two-way street, producing adverse effects for the original sufferer through reactions from others that extend adverse effects for all involved. As expected, and so often experienced, the one with mental illness can find themselves being misunderstood which can lead to others distancing themselves a little more. The emotional or actual physical distancing will usually lead to a weakening of that relationship and add to isolation for the one with the mental illness. This pattern can lead to the original sufferer either giving up hope for any relationship or even pushing others away to avoid the pain of losing relationships later. When relationships are sustained, sometimes a co-dependency develops in which both parties support dysfunction in the other person.

At a more personal level within families, many of you can probably think of these situations in your family or with friends’ families. The prevalence of mental illness means that many of you know what it feels like to be in these situations and feel the stress of such challenges. You may be watching as someone you care about lives out these diagnoses and may be trying to determine the best approach to helping them. For you and others in similar challenges, you may feel a variety of emotions from sadness to guilt to frustration and more, sometimes contributing to your own mental health conditions. As several family members each with their own mental health illnesses come together, the potential for mutual exacerbation rather than cooperative recovery increases.

As the stress of these sufferers has grown in intensity and frequency, the capacity and wisdom of churches to respond effectively seems to have declined. While many churches tout their addiction recovery ministries or divorce support groups, the actual day to day ministering to the average church member by church staff or other church members does not seem to be as effective. As with the world’s approach, many feel more pressure to have their act together in order “serve” rather than be served such that they are less likely to share their own struggles. When they do admit their mental illness, they are often shuffled off to the psychological experts rather than nurtured and ministered to by pastoral staff at the church. This is something I hear frequently from patients in my practice.

This is not to say that many churches do not have caring relationships established in which the hurting cannot find comfort and support in times of need. Supporting others during grieving of lost loved ones or through cancer episodes and injury recoveries occurs for defined periods of time. The challenge increases and the support often wanes when the problem involves mental illness lasting longer than a few months. This is even more true if the condition includes minimal progress on the part of the sufferer. Once the initial crisis wanes, the initial rally of support frequently trickles off, sometimes even blaming the one with mental illness for not getting over it. Ask parents whose children have autism and you will find many who struggle to fit in at church with children who do not fit in with Sunday school and children’s church. In a survey by Whitehead in Religion and Disability, the chances of never attending church services increased with several pediatric mental health diagnoses including: autism, depression, traumatic brain injury, conduct disorder, anxiety, speech problems, and others. A blog by Key Ministry discusses the implications of this study on how the broader church is not caring for this demographic. This overall response of the body of Christ is disappointing outside the few the exceptions which do offer a sanctuary for the mentally ill rather than another source of stress for them.

(The functional angle is examined in the next continuing installment of this series)

Bibliography:

Whitehead, A.L. (2018), Religion and Disability: Variation in Religious Service Attendance Rates for Children with Chronic Health Conditions. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 57: 377-395. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12521

“It’s The Hidden Disabilities That Keep Kids Out Of Church” by Stephen Grcevich MD. Key Ministry Blog. Published July 22, 2018. Accessed November 7, 2023. https://www.keyministry.org/church4everychild/2018/7/22/its-the-hidden-disabilities-that-keep-kids-out-of-church?rq=Whitehead

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 1 of 11

December 11, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks Mental Health, Tennessee Legislation

Jill glances at the reflection before her but recoils not from the actual portrayal of her face by the light, but from the meaning overlaid by life upon her countenance. The reflection reminds her that others have left her along the road of her long sorrow. The reflection reminds her that the brokenness of family members’ own struggles strands her on a lonely island in the ongoing buzz of life which then cannot hear her cry in the night nor the day. The reflection reminds her that nothing has relieved the suffering lying behind that reflection. No therapy, no medication, no well-intended but misdirected words of friends have lifted that reflection out of darkness. She knows that she will see that reflection tomorrow and the day after and so on until her eyes open no more. She does not expect the spirit behind that reflection to remind her of anything different in those future encounters.

Jill does not realize that millions of others daily recoil at their own reflections. They gasp at the reflected darkness of various mental illness shadow. The rest of today’s world continues on unaware of these millions until the news reports that one of them has chosen to put an end to the daily ritual of glancing at their own soul in the mirror. Should we care? Should we act? How far must this go and how many must fall before we acknowledge how tangled and knotted are the strings of life woven by today’s misunderstanding of reality as manifested in the mental health crisis presently weighing upon us..

The specter of Jill’s suffering along with the millions of others rumored by the media deserves an answer. Addressing such a problem as the multilayered complexity of our current mental health crisis requires understanding where the tangled mess begins and then following through the whole tangle to find the solution. This stands out rather like a multilayered knot in your child’s shoelace. Attempting to untangle and solve the knot starting halfway through it will either leave you at best with half a knot or possibly even worse with one and a half knots, i.e. a bigger mess than you started with. The mental health in which we and millions of our neighbors are presently suffering, likewise, cannot be solved without going to the root of the tangle and working out from there. The solutions offered by the secular world do not aim at the root of the tangle. Similarly, the solutions currently present in the broader church are falling short and need revision. The problem requires a solution that can only come from God’s design for the family and the church as the foundations of society, but which the current broader church is not leading as it is called to do.

The process for untangling something so complex and so multilayered as the mental health condition of our society obviously requires more time, energy, and steps than untying your child’s knotted shoelaces, but the basic steps are strikingly similar. First, we must be sure that a problem really exists. Second, once we realize that the problem is real, we must take a big picture look and understand the depth and breadth of the problem (its nature). Third, with a big picture understanding, we must find the best starting point from which to begin the disentanglement, or in other words, we must identify the root cause or causes of the tangle. Fourth, our response must be sufficiently powered and correctly focused while minimizing hindrances to have a hope of success.

Over the coming installments of this series, I will walk through this process as it applies to the state of our society’s mental health crisis. By answering each of these first three questions we will lead into the most important answer to the fourth question: how the work of the family and the church lie at the root of untangling this tangle mess of a mental health crisis.

Step One of Disentanglement: Confirmation that a Problem Exists

Before allocating extensive time and resources to this issue, we should confirm the truth of the contemporary claim that a mental health crisis exists. This applies whether referring to either the setting of our own community or more broadly to our nation. Just because your 4-year-old says that they can’t untie their shoe does not mean that it is knotted. Just because the news media and experts say that we have a mental health crisis does it mean that we need to respond to their alarm bells. Just because a Jill, as described earlier, looks into her mirror with sadness and despair does not mean we have a societal crisis. We also don’t want to extrapolate our own mental health struggles of anxiety or depression across everyone assuming that every one of us “feels” the same as we do. Before we devote much time, effort, or money into untying knotted shoelaces, we should be confident that a knot really exists.

With these cautions in mind, we consider how we might assess the situation and determine if a problem truly exists or not. Most of you reading this will not be mental health experts or public health experts with knowledge and extensive access to data sources that you trust. We will have to find sources upon whom we can trust to provide sufficient and accurate evidence for a problem’s existence. We must admit that looking to our own family and friends’ current experiences of mental illness does not mean that we have an epidemic or a national crisis. We or our loved ones may have a crisis, but that is a somewhat different problem and solution than having a societal crisis. The sources must be realistically free of bias, avoiding unnecessary conflicts of interest. We don’t need a deceitful mechanic telling us that we need to replace our carburetor and we don’t need government officials telling us that a crisis exists so they can offer their solutions at our tax expense. On the other hand, our sources will have to be sufficiently involved and knowledgeable in the mental health world for them to know something worth considering as a trusted and reliable/accurate source.

We then want more than one source so that we can be more confident that even the well-intentioned and unbiased did not make an honest mistake in their assessment. We might initially look to a governmentally derived report or study, but would also appreciate a study from a private or academic source that we trust. We might also try to find sources from outside the usual ones which agree with our worldview so that we avoid having our own echo biases from other’s who think like us. Then we would also consider personal experience whether in our family, our church, or our community. For those of us in the health care world, we can also look to the experiences of our patients as informal surveys of what is happening in the broader culture. Then we must evaluate each of these sources for bias, accuracy, breadth, depth and other factors to be sure it is worthy of our including it in our analysis. Finally, by comparing and combining these sources we can develop a better appreciation for whether a problem exists or not. This process also prepares us for later steps in our attempts to untangle the mental health knot.

These quotes provide a starting point, offering different perspectives and statistics demonstrating why we should be concerned with our nation’s mental health:

From Abilene Christian University: “The statistics are startling. Between 2007 and 2019, adolescents reporting a major depressive episode increased 60 percent. Tragically, during a similar time frame, the suicide death rate among 10–24 year olds increased 56 percent. This issue isn’t confined to young people. In 2020, anxiety and depression increased globally by 25 percent. Depression and anxiety rates exploded so rapidly that, at the end of 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a “devastating” national mental health crisis.

From CNN: “Nine out of 10 adults said they believed that there’s a mental health crisis in the US today. Asked to rate the severity of six specific mental health concerns, Americans put the opioid epidemic near the top, with more than two-thirds of people identifying it as a crisis rather than merely a problem. More than half identified mental health issues among children and teenagers as a crisis, as well as severe mental illness in adults.”

From SAMHSA:

“Fact: Mental health issues can affect anyone. In 2020, about:

One in 5 American adults experienced a mental health condition in a given year

One in 6 young people have experienced a major depressive episode

One in 20 Americans have lived with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression

Additionally, suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. In fact, it was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-24. Suicide has accounted for the loss of more than 45,979 American lives in 2020, nearly double the number of lives lost to homicide.”

From Pew Research Center: “Mental health and the pandemic: What U.S. surveys have found:

1. “At least four-in-ten U.S. adults (41%) have experienced high levels of psychological distress at some point during the pandemic, …”

2. “More than a third of high school students have reported mental health challenges during the pandemic. …”

3. “Mental health tops the list of worries that U.S. parents express about their kids’ well-being, according to a fall 2022 Pew Research Center survey of parents with children younger than 18. In that survey, four-in-ten U.S. parents said they’re extremely or very worried about their children struggling with anxiety or depression….”

4. “Among parents of teenagers, roughly three-in-ten (28%) are extremely or very worried that their teen’s use of social media could lead to problems with anxiety or depression, according to a Spring 2022 survey of parents with children ages 13 to 17.”

5. “Looking back, many K-12 parents say the first year of the coronavirus pandemic had a negative effect on their children’s emotional health.”

As I find further helpful sources to support the existence of a crisis, I will try to return to this blog and post those sources at the end. I am open to your sharing of ones you find, even ones that argue against a crisis if you find some. For now, I have also mentioned a few sources of proof in other blogs and can say that between several studies I have read and my experience in our clinic where we are truly seeing more and more mental health issues in our patients, there is a mental health crisis which seems to be worsening. Various studies indicate that people are more stressed and experiencing more mental health dysfunction with more diagnoses being made and more meds being prescribed. Weekly, I receive the same comments from my staff in caring for our patients that we are seeing more and more suffering both physically and mentally in those seeking our help. Many experts are expressing their concern in news interviews, articles, and books. Government and media are beating the same drum over and over, proclaiming that we need more mental health workers (I will address this inadequate response soon, but for now, their repetition acknowledges that they see a problem). The consensus of these sources indicate that we have a problem – that the mental health shoelaces are truly knotted.

If you doubt this assessment, I applaud your diligence to be more confident before responding to a problem that you are not sure actually exists. If this describes you, take time to solidify your opinion one way or the other before proceeding to the rest of this series. On the other hand, if you are in agreement with the knot’s existence in our society as well as its importance, return to read part two describing the nature of the mental health crisis. As you wait, do a little research on your own and begin formulating your own view of this issue. This work will prepare you for understanding in the next essay.

Bibliography:

Gramlich, John. “Mental Health and the Pandemic: What U.S. Surveys Have Found.” Pew Research Center, 2 Mar. 2023, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/02/mental-health-and-the-pandemic-what-u-s-surveys-have-found/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.

Krause, Chelsi. “The Mental Health Crisis: What’s Going on and What Can We Do.” Abilene Christian University, 9 May 2022, acu.edu/2022/05/09/the-mental-health-crisis-whats-going-on-and-what-we-can-do/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20anxiety%20and%20depression. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.

McPhillips, Deidre. “90% of US Adults Say the United States Is Experiencing a Mental Health Crisis, CNN/KFF Poll Finds.” CNN, 5 Oct. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/health/cnn-kff-mental-health-poll-wellness/index.html.

SAMHSA. “Mental Health Myths and Facts.” Www.samhsa.gov, SAMHSA, 8 Feb. 2023, www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/myths-and-facts. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.

Open Letter to Beacon Center Dec. 8th, 2023 Regarding School Choice

December 9, 2023 Eric Potter Current Inks, Legislation Alerts School, Tennessee Legislation

Good evening,

I respectfully invite you to reconsider your position on school choice, particularly regarding Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom proposal. While I understand that you have previously supported school choice, I ask you to hear me out as a fellow conservative Tennessean. This bill is simply false advertising.

Let’s start with our common ground. The public school system is failing our children. Recent proficiency scores I heard were abysmal from standardized testing. Children need a different option.

Now, on a superficial level, attaching money to where a student goes and giving parents “freedom” to choose a private school or homeschooling option appears to be a great idea. However, accountability is the buzzword coming from both Democrats and Republicans. This means that parents and private schools will be held accountable to state standards.

Wait, these same state standards are failing our children already. How does moving money from one bucket to another and requiring the second bucket to follow the first bucket’s rules make any long term difference? Accountability will require “teaching to the standardized test”. Private schools will have to submit to the same failed system and eventually produce the same failing results.

The school choice movement will pull all children into the same broken system rather than set children free. The money behind this movement can be traced back to the DeVos’s and other big money groups, much of that through American Federation for Children. This is not grassroots. This is not the solution we need. BUT… the plan by Gov. Lee is false advertising.

I would love the opportunity to dialogue and introduce you to a good friend who knows far more than I do about this crucial issue.

Blessings, Dr. Eric Potter

Below, you can share your concerns with the Beacon Center.

https://www.beacontn.org/tell-your-story

Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Failures- Part 3 of 4

Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Strings – Part 2 of 4

Three Reasons to Oppose School Choice – Part 1 of 4

Be the Opposition to School Choice

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 5 of 11: Continuing a Root Cause Search

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 4 of 11: Looking for Root Causes

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 3 of 11: Further Perspectives

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 2 of 11: The Nature of the Problem

Present Mental Health Crisis, Worldly Solutions, and the Church Part 1 of 11

Open Letter to Beacon Center Dec. 8th, 2023 Regarding School Choice

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