Mental Health Screening in Schools Signals the End of Parental Rights

In the 2005-2006 school year, all parents will receive written notice of new policies from your children’s schools. Many schools will ask you to sign permission slips, allowing school counselors or “advocates” to have conversations with your children. You will be told how your local schools are now involved in vision and dental screenings, learning disabilities and speech impediment screenings, and other acts of kindness, but watch for the small print or the extra little blurb, which states that your children will also be evaluated for emotional wellness. Watch for wording like “happiness indicators” or “family participation.”
The fact is that our president has mandated that every American child, age 3 through 18, is federally ordered to be evaluated for mental health issues and to receive “enforced” treatment. Welcome to President Bush’s New Freedom Initiative and New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Welcome to life-long profiling and drug addictions, New Freedom-style.
52 million students and six million adults working in schools, according to this commission, will be tested and should flush out at least 6 million people, or shall we say new customers, who will then be mandated to receive “treatment.” What treatment does our president’s commission have in mind? The newest drugs in the pharmaceutical pipelines, of course. The commission recommends “specific medications for specific conditions.” [thanks, Kathy]