Just Throw More Good Intentions at It: How Well-Intentioned But Misguided Ideology Is Undermining Public Education

One common but understated theme in recent writing about education is just how fad prone the field is. Afterall, it seems as if every few years a new idea comes along that convinces school districts and the greater community that everything that schools have been doing is wrong and that teachers must now throw out what they have been doing for years because something better has come along. The underlying notion is often that educators are at a loss for how today’s generation of students learn and need to completely upend the field in order to meet their needs.

Traditional education has been widely denounced as being antiquated, ineffective, and even harmful. A recent article shined a light on this latter point, discussing how teachers have been discouraged from direct instruction, modeling, and classroom lectures because such methods are inequitable. Remarkably, however, when researching the validity behind this condemnation of traditional instruction, researchers actually found that these methods closed the achievement-gap among at-risk students; meanwhile the student-centered practices being touted as the solution to this imagined problem showed no measurable impact on student achievement among these same populations. 

Of course, this is just one of many such instances where the “golden solution” has ended up being either overhyped or even counterproductive to student learning. Lucy Calkins’ Balanced Literacy approach has now been discredited and the Science of Reading (which looks a lot like the traditional reading instruction of yesteryear) has regained favor, although Calkins’ influence is still being felt in classrooms. In addition to this, a recent scandal has emerged with Mark Hattie, seriously calling into question his pedagogical approaches, with many critics now emerging saying that his approaches were being pushed blindly on educators for years without any visible positive outcomes. 

Teachers in the meantime feel mistrusted and unsupported. Studies show that they often believe that they are being handed down ideas and practices that sound great in a boardroom but are not rooted in classroom reality; worse, they feel as if they have not been consulted in the process to make these solutions workable (Santoro, 2018). There are multiple issues at hand with this dynamic, but they all point to a move away from pragmatism in favor of ideology. This trend has led to a world where education theorists, advocates, and publishers push solutions on teachers based on altruistic notions of equity and effectiveness without bothering to understand the actual logistics behind classroom instructors. It is a world where mandates are given based on how the world of education should work as opposed to how it actually does. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than the recent push towards restorative practices in the classroom. In the wake of the pandemic, there has been a distinct and at times unrelenting push for taking a more trauma-informed approach to classroom management, particularly in how teachers and administrators respond to negative behaviors, and concepts such as PBIS, restorative justice, and the use of planning rooms have been implemented at both the district and state level as the singular solution for addressing misbehavior. The underlying ideology behind these practices is undoubtedly noble; it is rooted in equity, believing that all students, even those with behavioral challenges, have the right to an education. Furthermore, it is based on the belief that all students can learn prosocial behaviors, and that the approaches to discipline and classroom management of the past have been part of the problem. 

As these practices have been implemented at a large scale, studies are showing that nearly 78% of teachers are considering leaving the field entirely due to an upsurge in difficult student behaviors and a feeling of a lack of support at the administrative level (Reinke et al., 2025). Essentially, teachers are hearing the theory behind restorative practices but are not seeing the practicality or effectiveness behind its implementation. Instead they are seeing increased behaviors, a distinct lack of accountability for students, and a disintegrating classroom environment. This disconnect between the ideology driving restorative practices and the practicality of using it with fidelity has contributed to decreasing morale and effectiveness that has made the current state of public education unsustainable. 

Well, Why Didn’t You Build a Relationship with Him: PBIS

Perhaps no other framework rooted in restorative practices has been as polarizing as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). This system that focuses on proactively preventing misbehaviors, recognizing and celebrating prosocial behaviors, and taking a restorative approach to correcting misbehaviors has undoubtedly become the most influential approach for addressing student discipline currently. Having been introduced in 1997, by 2023 over 25,000 schools representing all 50 states had implemented PBIS with support from the Office of Special Education Programs (Center on PBIS, 2024; PBIS Rewards, 2026). Government support of this program has extended to the point of state legislatures specifically endorsing PBIS ,and it being written into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and being endorsed by the US Department of Education for improving school climate (Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, 2014/2026).

With this kind of institutional backing, one would think that PBIS could hardly be any more controversial than student objectives, direct instruction, or response to intervention (RTI). Yet, PBIS has instead been met by a high level of skepticism by teachers with stories emerging of chaotic classrooms, ignored discipline issues, and a feeling that teachers have been relegated to “bribing” students for positive behavior through points or tokens. Teachers have also shared stories of increasing feelings of vilification by administrators and behavior specialists where they end up being blamed for student misbehavior with sentiments such as, “Well, this wouldn’t have happened had you developed a relationship with him,” or “No wonder why students misbehave in your classes; they are so negative,” or even, “It’s not the students. When was the last time you had a celebration?”

For teachers who are already addressing high levels of misbehavior, including disruption, defiance, and disrespect, these kinds of responses have an extra sting to them. Not only must they address the student behaviors in their classroom but also the implied disapproval from administration and the greater education community as well. This is where the disconnect between high-minded ideology and instructional practicality collide. Although PBIS is meant to be a student-centered, humanistic model rooted in the ideals of equity, teachers are often left feeling as if it has instead turned into a way to shift the responsibility (and blame) of student behavior away from those actually engaging in the misbehaviors to them. 

While teachers feel professionally attacked, administrators and education advocates often feel that the teachers are being dismissive of their efforts and obstinate. In reality, however, this is not a personnel issue but a systemic one stemming from a mismatch between altruistic ideology and the pragmatism of running a classroom. In a recent study, Lee (2026) summarizes this:

There is a documented "practicality gap" where teachers feel administrators prioritize low suspension numbers over actual classroom safety. This leads to the perception that PBIS is a "school reform model for discipline" that often fails to address students who do not respond to positive reinforcement alone.



Although this is most certainly not the intention, the reality for many teachers is that PBIS is a model that works in theory but has become a way to improve discipline metrics at the expense of classroom safety and instructional effectiveness.  

A large part of this breakdown centers on the application of PBIS. Although educators at all levels can agree upon the soundness of preventing misbehavior through proactive measures and positive support, what teachers are reporting is that when applied, there is a breakdown in meaningful disciplinary responses. These concerns have been reported as educators expressing “that PBIS can feel like a ‘get out of jail free card,’ where students learn that ‘they just have to sit in a circle, say 'sorry,' and they are back in class five minutes later,’ leading to escalated rather than corrected behaviors” (Anwar, 2023). This of course, is not so much a condemnation of the principles guiding PBIS, but rather in how schools are implementing them, the largest breakdown being on the effectiveness of responses to misbehavior.

This consequence vacuum runs deeper. As mentioned earlier in this section, teachers often feel a sense of judgement and shaming when providing escalated consequences. This has led to a general atmosphere where teachers feel as if they cannot intervene in serious situations involving student discipline but there is pushback (or even restrictions) for office referrals until “positive conditions are met, which can make classrooms feel less safe and more chaotic” (Wilson, 2015). In this environment PBIS is applied in a way that not only ignores misbehavior but actually supports it through a subversion of its core principals. Not only does this reinforce the feeling that teachers are responsible for the actions of students, but that all negative behavior is acceptable until positive supports are put in place. It should be noted that this is not a core belief of PBIS nor is it advocated by its proponents. Rather, it is a reality of a gap between how things should be and how they actually are. 

Stop Being So Punitive: Restorative Justice

In addition to PBIS, there have been other practices rooted in restorative practices that have met with similar results. This is most apparent with the replacement of traditional punitive consequences such as detentions and in-school suspensions with restorative planning rooms. Planning rooms have emerged as an attractive alternative to traditional disciplinary measures because they serve “as a dedicated space for students to step away from the conflict of the classroom, engage in self-reflection, and participate in facilitated dialogue” that allows them to develop a plan for returning to the classroom successfully (Costello et al., 2019). The notion is that students can reflect on their actions and why they were inappropriate and then determine how to best repair harm.

Ideally such an intervention replaces punishment with the chance to turn misbehavior into a learning opportunity where students are provided with social-emotional skills and regulation strategies to help them be more successful in the future. This concept has taken hold with 70% of high-poverty urban school districts replacing in-school suspension with planning rooms (also known as restorative centers, student success centers, and alternative learning spaces) and impacting nearly 14 million students (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2024/2026). This trend extends further with some states, such as Vermont, having specific frameworks in place to support the use of restorative spaces.

As with PBIS, however, there has been a noticeable disconnect between intention and reality that primarily stems from the logistical side of implementing planning rooms. One of the most common barriers has been with finding qualified personnel. For planning rooms to be successful, they need to be staffed with staff trained in behavioral interventions or they will become nothing more than in-school suspension rooms that quickly break down once they become full, resulting in students being returned to class before they have received any meaningful intervention (ProQuest/ERIC, 2023). It should be noted that with increasingly contracting school budgets, these rooms have at times been more likely to be staffed by paraeducators with abbreviated training that are able to implement the procedural side of the room but often lack the specialized training in behavior management or social-emotional instruction.

This gap has created a number of adverse effects that have been reported by teachers. One of the most prominent complaints is that students are being returned to class without any visible disciplinary resolutions; in fact, one recent survey revealed that 62% of teachers reported this happening while 84% of teachers stated that they have to address disruptive behavior at least 3-5 times a day, a 40% increase from 6 years prior (Reinke et al., 2025). Furthermore, “Field observations indicate that in 4 out of 5 instances where a restorative 'circle' or 're-entry meeting' was mandated, the process was either shortened to under five minutes or bypassed entirely due to staffing shortages in the planning room" (ProQuest/ERIC, 2023). To put it bluntly, there is a breakdown between what is supposed to be happening in planning rooms and what actually is. 

This is compounded by the fact that without targeted behavioral intervention being implemented consistently, the planning room not only loses its purpose but also becomes a barrier to learning. This is because it becomes a space where students can avoid work, receive snacks or play games, and then return to class without any observable change in their behaviors (Anwar, 2023). Not only has this become a point of consternation for teachers, but it has also effectively undermined them because their classroom authority has been removed. After all, how can they expect students to successfully engage in classroom learning, when those students who struggle with self-regulation are offered an alternative where they can avoid work and essentially be rewarded with food, games, and individualized attention? 

This is put more succinctly by Gardner-Webb University (2025) who writes, “The transition to restorative planning rooms has, in many cases, removed the 'teeth' from school discipline. If the student perceives the planning room as a more desirable environment than the classroom, the 'restorative' intent is lost, and the disruption is effectively reinforced.” Essentially, the compassion of restorative practices is being kept without the explicit instruction and accountability measures that require more capital in the form of personnel, training, and time. By removing this component, traditional discipline has not been replaced with restorative practices; it has simply been removed. Yet, when educators point this out, they often report being told that they are being too “punitive” and “punishment-focused.”

So What Does It Really Look Like?

Based on all of this, it would be easy to conclude that I am opposed to both PBIS and restorative practices altogether. Afterall, I have just spent the better portion of this article presenting example after example of how it undermines teachers, schools, and learning in general. Yet, here is the irony: I believe in both PBIS and restorative practices. Both are highly effective but only when done correctly. It is this latter part that has served as the current issue schools are facing; although the core beliefs of PBIS and restorative practices are being espoused, the breakdown is happening in their application. 

The fact of the matter is that PBIS has been in use for nearly 30 years. Over this time educators have done multiple studies that show that it can be effective. In fact, one landmark study provided experimental evidence that indicated that not only does PBIS reduce behavioral problems but also increases academic performance when implemented correctly (Bradshaw et al., 2010). The issues described by most frustrated educators stems from the fact that in most instances PBIS gets stripped of the more difficult to implement aspects and becomes a degraded version of itself, often consisting solely of rewarding students with tokens and telling teachers to “be more positive.” Thus, much like the telephone game, what starts as a sound, research-based framework turns into an ineffective shadow of itself.

A former colleague and staunch PBIS advocate frequently proclaimed, “PBIS is not a program; it’s a mindset.” If schools attempt to implement it as a program without doing the harder work of changing school culture, it stands to reason that its most visible components, such as tokens and restorative conversations, are what schools latch on to. Furthermore, if schools simply relegate PBIS for beginning of the year PD with no follow through, then schools are left with a few strategies and no guiding philosophy. It is akin to showing an aspiring mechanic a few YouTube videos on engine repair, giving them a tool box with some but not all of the tools they will need, asking them to fix a fleet of company trucks, and letting them know that you will check in later in the year and that you have full faith in them.

This ties in perfectly to what researchers have found to be the issue with most restorative practices in a school setting. The issue is not with the concept itself but how it is being implemented, or rather the resource constraints that cause it to be mismanaged. A specific example is how schools implement consequences using restorative practices. One piece that often goes overlooked is the “Social Discipline Window,” which argues that they “must be done ‘with’ students (high support/high control), rather than ‘to’ them (punitive) of ‘for’ them (permissive)” (Wachtel, 2016). In the examples provided earlier in this essay, these schools are not actually providing restorative practices but instead are simply removing punitive consequences and replacing them with permissive ones.

Unsurprisingly this misapplication also extends to use of planning rooms as well. As mentioned prior, the rooms are often staffed by personnel who only have a rudimentary training in behavior management and often do not have more than a cursory understanding of SEL instruction. Although from a logistics perspective this might seem like a reasonable compromise, “restorative rooms only work when paired with explicit Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) instruction” and “personnel and training are [often] the missing links” to their effective implementation (Anyon, 2016). Much like with PBIS, constraints ultimately result in many schools simply latching on to the most visible aspect (in the planning room itself) without incorporating the messier, more resource-consuming aspect: targeted SEL instruction from a trained professional. 

Thus, this article has come full circle. At the beginning of it, the question of why education is so prone to fads was asked. The answer might not lie so much in the educational concepts themselves but rather their implementation. Perhaps the real question is why schools only seem to take instructional frameworks at a superficial level. Until schools are willing to commit the resources necessary to properly implement PBIS and restorative practices, teachers will continue to be left with good intentions and not much else, and as research shows, this is not nearly enough. 

References

Anwar, A. (2023). Teachers' perspectives of restorative disciplinary practices [Doctoral dissertation, Abilene Christian University]. Digital Commons @ ACU. https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1352&context=etd

Anyon, Y., Gregory, A., Stone, S. I., Ensigman, D., Juras, J., & Malick, S. (2016). The influence of a social-emotional learning program on student discipline outcomes. Teachers College Record, 118(7), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811611800701

Bradshaw, C. P., Mitchell, M. M., & Leaf, P. J. (2010). Examining the effects of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports on student outcomes: Results from a randomized controlled effectiveness trial in elementary schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 12(3), 133–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098300709334798

Center on PBIS. (2024). About the Center on PBIS. https://www.pbis.org/about/about

Gardner-Webb University. (2025). A Mixed Methods Study of Teacher Perceptions of Restorative Practice in the Classroom. 

Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. (2014). Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: The Importance of School Climate. https://gosa.georgia.gov/

Lee, R. P. (2026). Elementary administrators' use of positive behavioral interventions and supports as a school reform model for discipline [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=21895&context=dissertations

National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). Report on the Condition of Education: School Safety and Discipline. U.S. Department of Education.

PBIS Rewards. (2026). The Economic Benefits of PBIS: What is $1 Worth? https://www.pbisrewards.com/blog/economic-benefits-pbis/

Reinke, W. M., Herman, K. C., Herman, A., & Holmes, S. R. (2025). Teacher stress, coping, burnout and plans to leave the field: A post-pandemic survey. School Mental Health, 17(1), 42–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-024-09712-4

Santoro, D. A. (2018). Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay. Harvard Education Press.

Wachtel, T. (2016). Defining restorative. International Institute for Restorative Practices.



Wilson, A. N. (2015). A critique of sociocultural values in PBIS. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 8(1), 92–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-015-0052-5