I&#x27;ve always thought that measuring schools by student academic performance alone is an incredibly lazy way of measuring performance across the board because it doesn&#x27;t take into account massive differences in the average student different schools get.<p>Measuring difference in student performance between two points in time would provide a better heuristic, and even using that as a measure for funding is silly as it creates a feedback loop. I&#x27;d rather see this data being used to identify and study top performing schools and the findings being applied to schools performing in the bottom percentile.<p>But then this entire problem hinges on how we as a society want public schools to work. Do we want them to act as an equalizer in the sake of social stability and mobility, or do we want them to amplify existing situations so that our top performers perform even better?<p>Whilst there is obviously already a deep relationship between teachers and their students, another method for taking weight off their backs in the regard of being mental health first responders could be having mental health responders on site, whether that be social workers or child psychologists which is how things are handled in Germany. At my previous school we had a psychologist that was shared across different schools in the area, who would be open to talk about any mental health issues a student might have.<p>Now in Germany we also have a 3 tiered system, where the lowest performing students go to a &quot;Hauptschule&quot;, which focuses on putting students into trades, a &quot;Realschule&quot; which opens up moving into either higher reaches of the trades or moving into a &quot;Gymnasiale Oberstufe&quot;, which is the conclusion of the &quot;Gymnasium&quot; that focuses on funneling students into universities to pursue further eduction.<p>Whilst this tiered system has its issues despite possibility to move into higher tiers later in your educational life, it also allows for dividing up certain problems. Students from a &quot;Gymnasium&quot; are usually assumed to come from a stable background, which means less social workers and stronger focus on academics, whilst students from a &quot;Hauptschule&quot; are usually offered more guidance in exchange for a less strict and more practice oriented scientific curricullum.