Should schools invest in drug screening?

NO
Gary D. Askins:
Just say no to drug tests

President George W. Bush in his State of the Union message proposed a $23 million budgetary increase for the testing of public school students. This was not an extension of his No Child Left Behind initiative - this is testing with a Dixie cup. Frankly, I question the efficacy of drug testing and any positive consequences attributed to this "gotcha!" approach to a very serious social problem.

There are drug users who make laws and legal decisions. There are drug users who attend schools. There are drug users who teach in schools. There are drug users who preach in church. There are drug users who play professional and amateur sports. There are drug users who lambaste other drug users on radio and television. Some of these people are subjected to random drug testing, but most are not. Yes, we as a nation have a drug problem. But will the testing of public school students reduce drug use?

The most recent research, a federally financed study of 76,000 students nationwide, by far the largest to date, found that drug use is just as common in schools with testing as in those without it. "It suggests that there really isn't an impact from drug testing as practiced," Dr. Lloyd D. Johnston, a study researcher from the University of Michigan, said. "It's the kind of intervention that doesn't win the hearts and minds of children."

I don't think students use drugs because they aren't being tested. And a $23 million federal subsidy would enable school districts to test less than 1 percent of our students. If we get selective and target certain student populations by age, ethnic group, sex, participation in certain activities, hairstyles, fashion statements or musical tastes (or lack thereof), we will destroy any hope of creating inclusive schools where cooperative teamwork is modeled for problem solving.

If the federal government has some spare money lying around, I would humbly suggest it be spent on programs that have been proven to be effective deterrents to drug abuse: parental involvement, decision-making skill development, extracurricular activities, drug counseling and peer support groups. If the president, his legislative water carriers and his drug czar really believe they've found the silver bullet for our drug problem, I think we should start testing them.

Gary D. Askins is a math teacher at Salado High School in Salado, Texas.

YES
John D. Homan:
It's working in southern Illinois

Some people would say that there is never a good time to adopt a random drug-testing policy for students enrolled in extracurricular events. They say it is an infringement on a student's right to privacy. Well, in Herrin, Ill., we beg to differ.

Pardon us for taking such a tough stance with the students. There simply have been too many incidents, too much history involving drug use by students, to sit idly by and do little to solve the problem.

Virtually all schools have drug-related problems of some kind. But when some of the star players are caught smoking weed in their cars just an hour before the big game - or worse yet, getting high in the locker room prior to a game, or even worse, selling illegal drugs to other kids - there is a need for drastic measures.

In recent years, we in Herrin have had to deal with these real-life situations - incidents that have divided our community on many occasions and caused irreparable damage. (No town likes to be the butt of jokes from residents in other communities who refer to your fast-break offense in basketball as a "jailbreak.") We Herrinites don't want to go through this heartache anymore. Enough is enough. It's time to take our school back.

The Herrin Unit 4 school board took a proactive approach last summer and asked the high school principal and athletic director to form a committee in our community of 10,000 to study the pros and cons of random drug testing. Also lending time to the project were a member of the school board, the district nurse, a police officer, two students and a handful of business professionals and parents. After carefully studying the law and drug-testing policies in place at other schools in Illinois, we chose what we considered to be the best guidelines to follow when implementing a random drug-testing policy.

We wanted to be firm but fair. The idea of establishing the policy was not to punish students but rather to deter them from using drugs. It will take months, if not years, to determine the success of the new Herrin drug-testing policy, but results in neighboring communities such as Harrisburg, Eldorado and Mount Carmel are encouraging.

If random drug testing is thought to be a heavy-handed solution to the problem in Herrin, we can live with that. We would rather people know that we run a clean program, at the risk of angering the students, than do nothing and watch the problems escalate.

John D. Homan is a reporter for the Southern Illinoisan newspaper in Marion, Ill. He was also a member of the Herrin random drug-testing committee.