DARE IS EFFECTIVE

Editor, The Sun:

For years I have remained silent when a program that I am part of was time
and time again criticized as being ineffective, but my silence must now be
broken.

In an opinion piece from the Deseret News published in The Sun on Feb. 23,
under the headline "DARE leadership admits its flaws", the DARE program was
once again marked as a failure because it is revamping the program.

I am not going to argue the case that the DARE program is effective. As any
intelligent adult knows, you can find statistics that can back up anything
you say. There are statistics showing the effectiveness of the DARE program
as well as statistics showing the contrary.

What statistics don't show are the lives touched by the program. Not just
the lives of the children, but also the parents, schoolteachers, staff
members and school administrators that stand behind the values taught in
the DARE program. These are the successes of this program that I have seen
in the classroom, on the playground and as part of the lives of these
people. It is amazing to hear parents inform me that they know when it's
"DARE Day" at their child's school because their children come home and
talk about what they have learned. I will bet that the networks' public
service announcements asking parents to talk to their kids about drugs wish
that they had this kind of affect.

What I don't understand is the logic behind someone saying that by
revamping a program you are admitting failure. Strange, I recently read
that the world champion New York Yankees revamped the contract of Derek
Jeter - was his multi-million dollar contract beforehand a failure? How
about the Philadelphia 76ers, the NBA's winningest team this year,
acquiring Dikembe Mutombo as their center - was the team a failure before
they revamped? Since the time that I worked at The Yuma Daily Sun the front
page has gone from black and white photos to color photos, plus a website.
Revamped? A failure before? Or perhaps, good products improving themselves?

Art Gradillas
Yuma