Lothar121

Blowing Smoke
Why random drug testing doesn't reduce student drug use.
Ryan Grim | Slate | 03/21/06

Drug testing of the American public has been steadily broadening over the past 20 years, from soldiers to grocery baggers to high-school and middle-school students. In its 2007 budget, the Bush administration asks for $15 million to fund random drug testing of students—if approved, a 50 percent increase over 2006. Officials from the federal drug czar's office are crisscrossing the country to sell the testing to school districts.

Yet, according to the two major studies that have been conducted on student testing, it doesn't actually reduce drug use. "Of most importance, drug testing still is found not to be associated with students' reported illicit drug use—even random testing that potentially subjects the entire student body," determined the authors of the most recent study.

It seems like common sense that if students are warned they could be caught getting high any day in school, they'd be less likely to risk it. And principals and the drug czar's office argue that this random chance "gives kids a reason to say no." But teens are notorious for assuming that nothing bad will happen to them. Sure, some people get caught, but not me. In addition, a student who chooses to do drugs already has more than a random chance of getting caught—adults are everywhere in this world. Someone could see her, smell smoke , see her bloodshot eyes, or wonder what the hell is so funny. And since most schools test only students who do something more than just show up for class—like join an after-school club, park on campus, or play a sport—kids can avoid the activities rather than quit puffing. Testing may not change much more of the equation than that.

Such are the findings of two major studies. The first study, published in early 2003, looked at 76,000 students in eighth, 10th, and 12th grades in hundreds of schools, between the years 1998 and 2001. It was conducted by Ryoko Yamaguchi, Lloyd Johnston, and Patrick O'Malley out of the University of Michigan, which also produces Monitoring the Future, the university's highly regarded annual survey of student drug use, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and whose numbers the White House regularly cites.

The early 2003 Michigan study compared the rates of drug use, as measured by Monitoring the Future, in schools that did some type of drug testing to schools that did not. The researchers controlled for various demographic differences and found across the board that drug testing was ineffective; there was no statistically significant difference in the number of users at a school that tested for drugs and a similar school that didn't.

The White House criticized the Michigan study for failing to look at the efficacy of random testing. So, Yamaguchi, Johnston, and O'Malley added the random element and ran their study again, this time adding data for the year 2002. The follow-up study, published later in 2003, tracked 94,000 middle- and high-school students. It reached the same results as its precursor. Even if drug testing is done randomly and without suspicion, it's not associated with a change in the number of students who use drugs in any category. The Michigan follow-up found one exception: In schools that randomly tested students, 12th-graders were more likely to smoke marijuana.

Results like these would mean budget cuts or death for some government programs. The White House has devised its own rating system, known as the Program Assessment Rating Tool, to help it cull failed initiatives. (These generally turn out to be the type of programs you wouldn't expect a Republican administration to like, but that's another story) In 2002, PART deemed "ineffective" the Safe and Drug Free Schools State Grants program, the umbrella for school drug testing. The Office of Management and Budget, which runs the PART evaluations, writes on its website, "The program has failed to demonstrate effectiveness in reducing youth drug use, violence, and crime." The PART evaluation did not single out drug testing, which is a small part of the overall state grants program. Still, combined with the Michigan studies, what we have here is a bureaucratic pounding. That hasn't stopped President Bush from sounding an upbeat note. In his 2004 State of the Union, he said, "I proposed new funding to continue our aggressive, community-based strategy to reduce demand for illegal drugs. Drug testing in our schools has proven to be an effective part of this effort."

Pressed for evidence to support the administration's bid to increase funds for testing, drug officials challenge the Michigan study's methodology. Drug czar John Walters has called for "detailed pre- and post-random testing data"—that is, a study of the rate of drug use at a school before a random testing program was initiated and then again afterward. Such a study is currently under way with federal funds, but it comes with a built-in flaw. Drug-use rates are obtained in questionnaires that school administrators give to students. If the administrators are asking students about their drug-use habits while they have the power to randomly test them, how honest can we expect the students to be, no matter what anonymity they're promised?

Like Walters, the $766 million drug-testing industry isn't ready to give up on testing students, for which it charges between $14 and $30 a cupful of pee. Melissa Moskal, executive director of the 1,300-member Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association, pointed me to a preliminary study that she likes better than Michigan's and that Walters also frequently references. The study is funded by the Department of Education and produced by the Institute for Behavior and Health, and its lead author is Robert DuPont, a former White House drug official. DuPont is also a partner at Bensinger, DuPont & Associates. DuPont says that Bensinger "doesn't have anything to do with drug testing." But the company's Web site states: "BDA offers a range of products designed to help employers establish and manage workplace drug and alcohol testing programs."

DuPont's study, which he calls "descriptive," chose nine schools that met certain criteria, the first of which was, "The student drug testing program's apparent success." The study's methodology appears to add to the slant. Rather than gathering information from students and analyzing it, DuPont relies on a questionnaire that asks how effective administrators think their random drug-testing program is. He doesn't claim neutrality. "I can't quite get the argument that [drug testing] wouldn't work," he says. He's now working on an evaluation of eight schools. The results won't be ready soon, but let's venture a prediction: Random drug testing will come out looking good.

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Cassius

Hey, if they drug testing every student in every public school, at least it would encourage parents to take charge of their child's education and send them to a private school or home-school them!

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delilahpunch420

i honestly don't believe that if the schools drug tested everyone in highschool it would encourage parents to send them to private schools or home schooling. i think once a teen has tried a drug and likes it, i dont think its going to prevent them from doing it anywhere else. also a parent can only do so much from keeping there child from experimenting with drugs once a child or teen reaches a certain age there going to do it no matter what.

i don't consider marijuana to be a hard drug in my eyes its a soft drug. it make a person calm and relaxed, unlike alcohol where now teens and adults are drinking to get drunk and causing accidents on the road and killing others. bottom line people are going to do what they please and i say choosing marijuana over alcohol is a smarter choice.

Cassius

Why do you disagree? Nothing in the rest of your post supports your position, it's all talking about something else. Why don't you think mandatory testing of all public school students would lead to an increase in home-schooling and private-schooling frequency?

delilahpunch420

year sorry if i got a little off the subject there i tend to do that.

but anyway i think if the schools do decide to do mandatory drug testing it would probably only be for those in sports or any after school activities/clubs i dont think they could actually do it on every student who enters the school. also private schools are expensive and so is homeschooling, and not all parents can afford to do that for thier child unless the government is willing to pay then by all means that parent can take their child to private school.

Toking Jedi

I agree. Random drug testing would only aggravate parents, and alert them to probably what they already know. It wouldn't even be good; it would creat much more stress for those parents, such as mine, who aren't liking their kids' use of marijuana. This way, there is much more of a chance of a kid getting caught. My mom would flip out.

I really think drug testing goes too far. If I had to be subjected to that, I would refuse. I'd take it to the supreme court, if I had to. It's my body and I can do what ever I want to it. If it's against the law to make myself feel good, so be it. But I'll be damned if I ever am forced to give a random drug test in a school (which i won't; luckily, I go to private school...). It's just another Catholic and Evangelical zero-tolerance-'cause-we-don't-understand-it mechanism. It's crap. Though who am I saying this to? A bunch of people who already share my opinion. Fun, fun.

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Buzzby

It's obvious that you're not a parent. Most parents don't want to have their kids taking drugs and would be happy for any program that would discourage them from doing so. Inasmuch as parents have the right to drug test their minor children, I doubt that they would object to having that responsibility transferred to the schools.

There would be some civil-libertarian-type parents who would object to it. Parents who support their children's drug use would object to it. Parents who are themselves drug users would probably object to it because they wouldn't want the light shown on their own illegal pastime. As long as it was guaranteed that there would be no involvement with law enforcement I doubt that very many others would object. I don't think that minors should use drugs and I really don't know how I would have reacted if this was proposed when my daughter was in high school.

This is entirely separate from the issue of whether or not school drug testing actually discourages kids from using drugs. The best studies seem to indicate that it does not.

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Cassius

The fact that you go from "right" to "responsibility" in the same sentence without even a second thought, shows me that you missed the point of what I was saying.

Parents absolutely have the right to drug test their minor children if they choose. However, it is my belief that if they are in a situation where drug testing is necessary, they have ALREADY FAILED as parents. That doesn't mean the situation is irreparable, but it does indicate to me a huge lack of trust on the parents' part. I'm not saying that parents' should blindly trust their kids, but I _am_ saying that it is parents' responsibility to cultivate a relationship of trust with their kids. How can you guide your children through life if they do not trust you? How can they trust you if you do not trust them? What makes you think if you started regularly drug testing them that they wouldn't find a way around it, or even if they didn't, that they wouldn't accept your judgment on that matter but the obvious lack of trust would cause them to rebel in other areas and never tell their parents about it? If a kid has a mind to get fucked up, and you start randomly testing him, what makes you think he won't give up weed and start binge drinking instead, when you're not around?

You go from calling it a "right" to calling it a "responsibility" in the same sentence. Then you say you doubt parents would object to that "responsibility" being transferred to the schools. I say, part of the problem _is_ transferring responsibilities to the school.

Why not install mandatory metal detectors and frisk searches upon entry into any and all public schools? Why not have surveillance cameras in all classrooms? Why not subpoena library records so the schools can find out what kind of "extracurricular education" children are getting?

You have to draw the line somewhere, and to me the issue here is trust. To those who are given trust, they will be trustworthy. And it starts even before kids enter school. You're absolutely right that I am not a parent. However if I were and I had spent all of my child's life cultivating a relationship of trust with him, so that I felt if he made a decision that I wouldn't approve of he would STILL come and talk to me about it because I let him make his own decisions even if I didn't approve and he had learned to come to me for advice, but that in most cases he could take it or leave it -- then I would feel insulted ON BEHALF of my children that schools were destroying the trust I had created with my child.

This post is so full of assumptions that I can't possibly address them all without completely throwing this topic on a tangent. Suffice it to say, "getting a job" is hardly the "most important thing you need to know" how to do. Again, the mentality of entitlement, only this time it's corporate entitlement instead of government entitlement. "All I have to do is know how to get my foot in the door, and the big bad company will take care of all my needs and protect me for life."

Students like yourself, who clamor for education, hardly require any. Being capable of education on your own means that you don't need anyone else in order to further your education, you don't even need a school. That's great, but that's not the kids I'm concerned about.

Students who "don't give a damn", as you put it, are the ones who need to be addressed. You say it's the family's fault for starting the cycle of the instant gratification mentality. You're absolutely right. However, passing the buck and laying blame will get us nowhere. Should we just accept that it is the parents' fault, and let our country go to crap as adults are churned out not only with little or no education but with little or no desire for education?

It is my belief that inside every child is a person who desires to grow, to become more than what they are. It is also my belief that part of the job of a teacher is to activate this desire. It is also my belief that our current educational system, in a lot of ways, ties the hands of teachers in this regard. There are some very exceptional teachers out there that do this despite the system they are forced to work in, but they are few and far between. As TheNewGuy said, few teachers actually "teach" in public school these days. That is what I meant by "engaging their capacity for intelligence".

Agreed. But I'm not looking to lay blame here. I don't care whose "fault" it is. I care about the future of America. I care about the growing gap in math and science education by American graduates as compared to international graduates. I care about the reduced number of American students taking technical courses of curriculum. Does the fact that it is the parents fault for starting the cycle of instant gratification justify our public schools reinforcing and perpetuating that cycle? It is my belief that a good teacher can and does engage his students, despite what their familial inclinations are. It is my belief that a lot more teachers COULD be "good teachers" if the system was better suited to allow it. It is my belief that drug testing in schools reinforces the restrictions already in place on teachers, by reinforcing the mentality of students that it is "us against them". They will just find another way to get high or drunk, or something else entirely. Do drug tests detect sniffing white-out?

No it isn't. You just have to concentrate first on getting them interested so that they start to "give a damn". Then you can teach them.

Yes, teachers have an uphill battle to undo some of the conditioning that parents give them, particularly the conditioning of instant gratification. Yes, it is the parents' fault for them having it in the first place. No, it is not an acceptable excuse to "write off" those students as "not being willing to learn" and only spend time and effort on educating the students who want to receive an education.

Why? You said yourself you pursued your own education. You educated yourself out of class. You "read a book" on that hourlong busride, something educational or fun. You sought out the teachers after class to ask them questions.

So how can you say the good students won't learn anything? They already WANT to learn. They will learn whether the teachers teach them or not. However the teachers are always willing to give them additional help outside of class. Why is the 45 minutes of class so important to devote to the "good" students, when those students already are furthering their own education? Those students are the only ones doing the homework!

Don't you think the 45 minutes of class would be better utilized if the teacher could somehow interest the 25 students who don't give a damn, and TURN them into good students, than if they spent that 45 minutes teaching the five students who already do all the homework, have read chapters ahead, seek the teachers outside of class for additional questions/help/education?

I'd rather have 100 million of the next generation of America moderately educated, than 5 million of them highly educated and 95 million with little to no education whatsoever.

In fact, in graduate school, you pursue all your own learning anyway. They assume that by this point, you're interested in learning. So, you rarely if ever see your teachers. You "direct your own education" through research and thesis papers, eventually dissertations. The "teachers" are just there to review with you periodically to make sure you're still on the right track, and to help you IF you need it.

So why can't this model be applied to "good students" in secondary school? Why can't the teacher spend the majority of class time getting the WHOLE class interested in the subject matter, instead of going over the intricacies of last night's homework with the 5 students who are paying attention while everyone else passes notes and make spitballs?

Ilove#

I'm from canada, grad'd 2003, but as far as I can tell, we have many of the same problems as the US education system.

I have to agree with buzzby in that it is IMPOSSIBLE to teach someone who doesn't want to learn, and making them "give a damn" before teaching them doesn't change this situation, because then they give a damn, and thus are no longer impossible to teach.

I don't think it should be the teacher's job to get students motivated to learn, and then teach them. The education system is for just that, educating. It is far too big of a burden to have to do both, and the system just isn't funded well enough to undertake both. Furthermore, by the time children make it to a level where someone notices that they just don't give a damn about learning, it is already far too late to easily instill that desire in them. Parent's should be responsible for cultivating their childrens natural curiosity from a very early age, so they grow up wanting to know the "why?" of everything. The rest will come easily.

Cassius

Yes, they should be. But if they aren't doing it, are we supposed to resign ourselves to the fact that our country is falling far behind other countries in terms of educated citizens?