When adults label student aggression as the “most pressing issue” in education, it’s like diagnosing the fever while ignoring the disease. Chaotic classrooms and rising disruptions are real issues, but treating these symptoms as the underlying crisis guarantees the wrong prescription.
From that distorted diagnosis, we see dysregulated children. But adjust the focus, and a different picture emerges: schools stretched beyond capacity, stripped of support, and shaped by decades of structural failures. Framing classroom disruption as a student aggression crisis obscures root causes and points us towards punitive measures that only compound the problem. This framing invites us to see students as problems to manage, rather than young people to support, guide, and educate. It leads to suspensions, expulsions, push out, and policing, actions that sever trust and push students out of the learning environment.
Yes, students’ mental health needs have increased amid a critical lack of access to mental health care. Yes, our youngest learners missed out on socialization due to the pandemic during critical development years. Yes, they carry the weight of a world where hunger, violence, and climate disasters are constant. But the students aren’t the problem—and neither are teachers.
Connecticut built an education system relying on local property taxes (60% of school budgets), ensuring that communities with lower property values (mainly communities of color disproportionately impacted by redlining) have less money for their schools. Despite recent reforms to the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula that increased state funding, those changes only reach 40% of school budgets. The remaining 60% funded through local property taxes remains an inherently inequitable system that perpetuates segregation and differential resourcing.
Since 2020, Connecticut has decreased inflation-adjusted spending on public education. Schools with the most students in poverty receive the least money—for teacher salaries, support staff, professional development, facility maintenance, and student resources.
Students aren’t creating this crisis; they are responding to conditions adults designed. Classroom climate is a function of policy choices and material conditions, and right now, those conditions continue to degrade. Teachers agree that class sizes and caseloads are too high. School facilities need repairs, and teacher shortages are worsening statewide. The disparities are stark: in high-need urban districts, teachers manage 30+ students without aides while wealthy suburbs maintain smaller classes with robust support. One social worker covers multiple buildings in Bridgeport; Greenwich affords one per school.
We must also examine how we describe student behavior, using such problematic and loaded terms such as “violent” or “aggressive.” A suspension does not constitute objective information about behavior; it reflects adult decision-making. Exclusionary discipline is a discriminatory and counterproductive policy choice that can be changed. Research shows that a highly punitive school climate not only harms students who are suspended, but reduces test scores for their peers. Research also shows that stressed, underresourced teachers make more discriminatory discipline decisions. Black students, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners are suspended at higher rates for the same behaviors. Increases in reported confrontations tell us as much about overwhelmed adults interpreting behavior as about students themselves.
Language matters, especially in a system that magnifies student behavior while neglecting the role that adult systems have in prevention and support. Admiring the problem and amplifying blame on children is counterproductive and damaging.
Connecticut knows what works—we refuse to fund it adequately. Our state has expertise in trauma-informed classrooms and restorative practices through organizations like Clifford Beers and the Child Health and Development Institute. We’ve seen the results: at Harding High School in Bridgeport, for example, changes in staff behavior and mental health partnerships “helped students stay in school and helped staff address the root causes of disengagement.”
The path forward requires three concrete actions:
First, Connecticut legislators must increase the foundation amount in the ECS formula and fully fund the Special Education and Expansion Development (SEED) grant. The current system perpetuates segregation and guarantees inequity. Increasing the foundation amount in ECS funding and fully funding SEED would provide every district, especially those serving students in poverty, with resources for smaller classes, adequate mental health staff, and support structures that prevent behavioral crises.
Second, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) must invest meaningfully in restorative justice and trauma-informed care. These evidence-based approaches build relationships and address root causes—but only when schools have resources to implement them properly. That means funding for training, dedicated staff time, and mental health professionals supporting both students and teachers.
Third, CSDE must ban exclusionary discipline for non-physical offenses. Suspensions and expulsions disproportionately target students of color and students with disabilities, sever relationships necessary for learning, and push students out—while doing nothing to address conditions leading to behavioral challenges.
The title of this crisis is not “student aggression.” It is adult failure. We can continue to punish the symptoms of a system we designed, or we can take responsibility for treating the disease. Connecticut students deserve better, and the choice is ours.
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Zoe Masters, Staff Attorney, School Justice Project at the Center for Children’s Advocacy
Kathryn Meyer, Director of the Medical-Legal Partnership at Yale Child Study Center
Daniel Pearson, Executive Director, Educators for Excellence–Connecticut
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