Washington Post - Student anxiety and hostility on public high school campuses has worsened since Donald Trump became president and is affecting student learning, according to a new UCLA report.
More than half of public high school teachers in a nationally representative school sample reported seeing more students than ever with “high levels of stress and anxiety” between last January, when Trump took office, and May.
“I’ve never been in a school year where I’ve had so many kids, kind of on edge,” the report quoted Utah social studies teacher Nicole Morris as saying.
And nearly 80 percent said some students had expressed concern for their well-being because of the charged public conversation about issues such as immigration, health care, the environment, travel bans and LGBTQ rights, it said. Furthermore, 40 percent said concerns over key issues — such as Trump’s ban on travelers from eight countries, most with Muslim majorities; restrictions on LGBTQ rights; and health care — are making it harder for students to focus on their studies and making them less likely to come to school.
“I had students stand up in the middle of class and directly address their peers with racial slurs,” the report quoted Ohio social studies teacher Aaron Burger as saying. “This is not something I have seen before.”
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