The mission creep of SEL
How Social-Emotional Learning affects schools' time, budgets, and expectations.
Originally published in the Moultrie News.
What’s the deal with SEL (Social Emotional Learning) programs? They started a course at my son’s school to help with “emotional regulation” (what’s that?). My son and his friends say it’s corny.
SEL programs try to teach kids to manage their emotions and interactions so they can learn, behave, and relate to others more effectively. This includes help with “emotional regulation,” which is jargon for managing their feelings, like calming themselves when they’re upset. SEL also aims to reduce anxiety, depression, loneliness, and bullying. Programs claim to strengthen mental health, improve academic achievement, and cure baldness. (Just kidding about that last one.)
There are two kinds: embedded programs, which integrate lessons into ordinary instruction, and standalones, which are taught as one-off class periods or during homeroom.
“Corny” accurately describes the forced and artificial vibe many students get from canned programs. Videos and other materials are often inartfully produced. Think of watching one of those old ABC Afterschool Specials, then “rapping” about it with your teacher using a scripted discussion guide and you’ll have the idea.
Unfortunately for SEL, students are good at sensing when something is scripted or patronizing and will scornfully reject it. Particularly in standalones, students often say the language is childish, the lessons dwell on things they already know, and the activities are disconnected from their real problems. For these reasons, researchers generally tab standalones as the weakest SEL model.
SEL isn’t new, but it became a full-fledged educational trend circa 2020 as a way to tackle increasing mental health concerns and manage rising school discipline problems without issuing punishment.
Whenever I say “educational trend,” think, “$$$.” Sources including eSchool News indicate that American schools spend over $1 billion annually on SEL, a staggering sum putting it on equal financial footing with math and reading programs and dwarfing library books ($750 million), vocabulary instruction ($200 million), science lab materials ($500 million), and math intervention tools ($300 million).
That doesn’t even include the hidden cost. SEL programs drop a lot onto teachers’ already teeming plates. Transforming Education calculates that teachers spend about 4.3 hours weekly on SEL programs. Convert that to salary costs and the annual total balloons to over $45 billion.
Given the investment, one would hope SEL would be crushing the mental health problem. Varying studies, however, show the long-term impact somewhere between modest and negligible. Why?
For one, teachers aren’t therapists. They’re trained to educate kids in academics, not psychology. Also, SEL generally ignores two of mental health’s biggest disrupters: phones and drugs.
A 2026 study in JAMA Health Forum shows teens using cannabis have a 34 percent higher risk of depression, 24 percent higher risk of anxiety disorders and — hold on to your hats — 119 percent higher risk of psychotic disorders.
The data on social media is equally discouraging. A study in Pediatrics found that 12-year-olds with smartphones face a 31 percent higher risk of depression, while a UC San Francisco study of 12,000 kids found their depressive symptoms rose as their social media use climbed.
Despite these facts, SEL programs often have little to say about either problem.
Nevertheless, the need for help is undeniable. Groups including the CDC and NIMH report that 40 percent of teens feel persistently sad, one in five face major depression, and about 20 percent consider suicide.
But do schools have the answer? NAEP data shows that reading has declined since 2015, no state has improved, 40 percent of 4th graders read below basic, and by 12th grade, only 35 percent are proficient in reading and 22 percent in math. Those numbers are even more alarming because schools are specifically designed to prevent them.
Re-focusing on academics could help the problems SEL seeks to address. A quality education acts as a powerful social vaccine. By improving students’ cognitive skills and standard of living, it helps foster stronger mental health foundations.
But we’re not getting that done. If schools aren’t accomplishing the very reason for their existence, how can we expect them to solve deep-rooted sociological problems?
Perhaps our best strategy would be to stop the mission creep and go back to basics.
Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.