High schools and middle schools at large are not only creating undue and unnecessary stress, overpacking student schedules, and contributing to a mental health crisis for kids around the country, but the payoff that was promised – the one that makes all of this “worth it” – is no longer happening. 

Many schools consider themselves places where students “get ready for the ‘real world.’” It is so embedded in what they do that they literally refer to themselves as “Prep Schools.”…