The Department of Education Already Has the Power to Stop the School Psychology PipelineThe Department of Education’s demand that California and Washington explain their secrecy policies as they relate to behavioral health data collection illustrates the federal government doesn’t understand what tools it has to impact the changes needed to save the public education system.
Current laws on the books already provide the necessary tools: The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects education records, The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) requires informed parental consent for evaluations and also limits intrusive surveys and sensitive information gathering.
That legal framework points to a larger truth: federal protections can close the pipeline that turns children into data points, diagnoses, and referrals to dangerous, profit-driven behavioral health providers operating behind a shield of institutional immunity. Why beg for data from the States when the ultimate power comes from enforcing current laws?
Schools were never meant to function as psychological sorting centers. They were meant to educate children, not to funnel them into opaque systems where parents are sidelined, records are hidden, and families are pressured to accept labels, surveillance, and interventions never discussed or chosen.
The federal government does not need new permission to correct a broken educational system. FERPA already limits disclosure of student records. IDEA already requires informed consent before key evaluations. PPRA already restricts sensitive information gathering. The problem is not the absence of legal authority. The problem is the refusal to use the authority or the basic knowledge of that authority.
That is exactly why the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA) matters. The purpose of the legislation was to strengthen the nation through stronger education in the fields that build capacity, competence, and security. That principle still applies today. Federal education money should support reading, writing, math, science, and practical instructional tools, not expand a behavioral-health bureaucracy that weakens family authority and replaces education with diagnosis.
A child medicated into compliance is not being prepared for independence, resilience, or national service. A country that tolerates secrecy, coercion, and overdiagnosis in its schools does not build strength. It is building dependence. And dependence is the opposite of a defense-ready nation.
The answer is not more silence from Washington or begging for secret behavioral health curriculum developed by the psychiatric industry and drug companies. The answer is enforcement. Enforce informed consent. Enforce parent access. Enforce disclosure limits. Redirect federal education dollars away from mental-health pipelines and toward real educational tools grounded in science.
The Department of Education should deliver parents an avenue to obtain a receipted avenue to process violations of these laws. In addition, the Department of Education must break up the monopoly of the behavioral health industry and drug companies within the educational system. The laws are already on the books and need to be used now.
AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.
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