Why Aren’t We Teaching Every Student CPR?

A volunteer with the San Francisco Paramedic Association teaches CPR using a mannequin on June 1, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif. —Justin Sullivan—Getty Images In 2024, two Michigan high school students were sitting in the bleachers during a student-teacher basketball game when their physical education teacher collapsed from cardiac arrest.

They had both recently learned cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at a career-focused technical nursing center and rushed to help, beginning chest compressions and using an automated external defibrillator (AED) before emergency responders arrived.

Thanks to their actions, their teacher survived , and is one of approximately 350,000 Americans who experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest each year.

Roughly nine out of ten will not survive .

We often describe the difference between life and death as a matter of speed: how quickly emergency services arrive and how fast a hospital can intervene.

But in reality, cardiac arrest outcomes often depend on whether someone nearby begins CPR in the first few minutes, which rarely belong to emergency responders, but instead to whomever is standing closest: a classmate, teacher, stranger at a basketball game, or someone waiting for a train.

Every minute without CPR sharply reduces the chances the patient will live long enough to reach a hospital.

Schools occupy a special role in public health.

As a location most Americans pass through and one of the only places they may ever encounter CPR training, a high school classroom may be the best opportunity to prepare the next generation of lifesavers.

Schools already rehearse fire drills and lockdown drills for dangers that are statistically rare.

Cardiac arrest is the reverse: far more common, and far less rehearsed.

CPR skills can save lives years down the road when a cardiac arrest occurs at home, in a gym, at an airport, or at a university.

Harnessing that opportunity requires both the resources to teach CPR effectively and the policies to ensure every student has the chance to learn it.

In Europe, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, and England implemented school CPR education through national requirements or curriculum standards.