Making Public Education Better: Strengthening Behavioral Support — Helping Students, Not Punishing Them

Across the country, teachers are reporting the same challenge: student behavior has become one of the most significant obstacles to learning. Classrooms are more dysregulated, emotional crises are more frequent, and extreme behaviors are more common.

But here’s the truth often ignored in policy rooms: Behavior isn’t the problem. The lack of support is.

To improve public education, we must shift from punishment to support—from reacting to behaviors to understanding and addressing them.

The Challenge Teachers Are Facing

Most teachers enter the profession prepared to teach. Few enter prepared to be therapists, crisis responders, or social-emotional specialists. Yet that’s exactly what today’s classrooms demand.

Students are struggling with:

• Anxiety and depression

• Trauma and instability

• Social-skill delays

• Difficulty regulating emotions

• School avoidance

• Attention and executive-function challenges

These struggles show up as behavior—but punishing them doesn’t solve them.

Teachers are doing everything they can, but they cannot shoulder this alone.

Behavior Is Communication

Every behavior—positive or negative—is a message. Some students say, “I’m confused.”Others say, “I’m overwhelmed.”And some say, “I don’t feel safe.”

When schools interpret behavior as defiance, they respond with consequences. When schools interpret behavior as communication, they respond with support.

Understanding the “why” behind the behavior opens the door to solutions that actually work.

Punishment Doesn’t Teach Skills

Traditional discipline systems often rely on:

• Suspensions

• Detentions

• Isolation

• Zero-tolerance policies

These approaches may remove the behavior in the moment, but they do not develop the long-term skills students need. In fact, harsh discipline often increases disengagement, absenteeism, and future behavior problems.

Students don’t learn emotional regulation through punishment. They learn it through practice, modeling, and support.

What Real Behavioral Support Looks Like

Schools need systems—not slogans.

The most successful districts use:

• Trauma-informed practices

• Restorative conversations

• Behavior intervention teams

• Check-in/check-out systems

• Predictable routines and expectations

• Social-emotional learning woven into daily instruction

• Partnerships with mental-health providers

These supports help students learn self-control, communication, and accountability—not just compliance.

How This Connects

• Discipline & Support, Not Punishment: We don’t fix behavior by punishing children into compliance; we fix it by giving teachers the training and staffing they need.

• Mental Health Matters: Behavioral challenges and emotional health cannot be separated.

• Teacher Protection: Teachers do not deserve to be left alone to deal with extreme behavior and a lack of support.

• Community-Based Responsibility: Schools, families, counselors, and administrators must share the work—teachers cannot do it alone.

  
  

What Should Be Done

1. Hire More Counselors, Behavior Specialists, and Social Workers

   • Teachers need partners, not more expectations.

2. Train Staff in Trauma-Informed and Restorative Practices

   • Practical strategies, not theoretical lectures.

3. Implement Tiered Behavior Support (MTSS)

   • Clear, consistent systems that help students before behaviors escalate.

4. Provide Safe Rooms and Calming Spaces

   • Not as punishment, but as places to regulate and reset.

5. Strengthen Family Engagement

   • Behavior plans should involve parents from the outset and throughout.

6. Reduce Class Sizes and Workload

   • Fewer students = more support and stronger relationships.

     
     

Closing: Behavior Support Is Student Support

Behavior challenges aren’t signs of failing students—they’re signs that students need help. They aren’t signs of failing teachers—they’re signs that teachers are being asked to meet impossible demands without the resources to do it.

If we want to make public education better, we must build schools where behavior is addressed with tools, not blame; with partnership, not punishment.

Because when students feel supported, they behave better. And when teachers feel supported, they teach better.

A strong behavior support system strengthens everyone.