LEGAL DRUGS: IT'S TIME TO FACE THIS TEEN PROBLEM

While Congress and President Bush debate the merits of testing and
accountability, here's another aspect of the education debate that's worthy
of consideration: kids on drugs.

The problem has become so pervasive that it is driving experienced
teachers, perhaps our greatest national treasure and our best chance of
improving education, out of the classroom. I recently spoke to a
high-school teacher with more than 25 years of experience. Those who know
her work -- in her district and in the educational community at large --
know her as not just a good teacher but also a great one -- the kind of
teacher who changes lives. This teacher said that this just-finished school
year would be her last. She is taking early retirement, she said, because
she knows that she can expect more than a quarter of next fall's incoming
class to be on drugs.

The government spends billions to fight a so-called war on drugs, and
keeping kids off drugs is a major part of the effort. In recent years, the
re-emergence of casual attitudes about marijuana among young people has
been cause for concern, as has the rise in use of "designer" and "club"
drugs such as Ecstasy. To the extent that these substances are abused by
school-age children, they are an education problem.

But these are not the drugs our teacher was talking about. Rather, the drug
use driving her out is perfectly legal -- kids in their teens and younger
on such prescription drugs as Ritalin, Adderall and Prozac. Doctors, often
under pressure from parents, are starting kids on drug regimens, and they
are doing it, in some cases, as early as the first years of elementary school.

Welcome to the other drug problem. The teacher I spoke to is from a school
that serves a fairly well-to-do suburb of a big city. This drug problem,
far from being a stubborn accompaniment to poverty, seems to be a
reflection of middle-class achievement anxiety. Most of the prescriptions
are being written to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, which
has been diagnosed in ever greater numbers since the start of the 1990s --
a time during which use of Ritalin soared.

As for my teacher friend, she increasingly found herself in a situation
where she was called upon to be more clinician than teacher.

When a significant portion of your class acts unpredictably and you don't
know whether the students' moods spring from natural sources or a drug, she
told me, actual teaching takes a back seat. That's why she left.

But the problem remains. Until we as a nation wake up to the syndrome of
parenting with pills and do something to address it, it likely will worsen.
For now, it looks as if our future is on drugs.

- -- Rather is anchor of CBS Evening News and a native Texan.