BOON OR BUST?
COUNTY DARE PROGRAM DRAWS PRAISE, CRITICISM

(Waukesha) - The county's DARE program is either an expensive sacred cow
that fails to keep children from drugs or a valuable program that
guides youngsters on a straight-and-narrow path through a minefield of
potentially lethal influences.

Those are the differing opinions of law enforcement officials and
educators, and national experts and local officials.

Beloved by many and watched dubiously by some, the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program is as much a part of the scene at local
schools as pep rallies.

Among the county's biggest DARE boosters is District Attorney Paul
Bucher, who fights for funding for the program and who attends dozens
of DARE graduations each year.

"The bottom line to me is there's nothing else out there," he said.
"We're sort of like the life preserver out there."

But county supervisors Walter Kolb of Waukesha and Mareth Kipp of
North Prairie question the value of DARE, although they are quick to
note they will not try to gut the program in the current budget process.

"It's like a sacred cow," said Kolb, who said he would likely "get my
head chewed off" for challenging it.

Kipp said fifth-graders - the group DARE targets - were "too young" to
be taught about marijuana, cocaine and heroin. She said she would
rather see those messages hammered home in middle and high school,
where those problems are more prevalent.

"I know Paul Bucher will not be happy (with my comments)," she said.
DARE is "just very politically correct in Waukesha County."

Politically correct or not, Claudia Roska, executive director of the
Waukesha County Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, said DARE "is
not a very cost-effective program. I'm not impressed with the outcome
research."

"It's like throwing good money to bad," Roska said.

There is no dispute the program is pricey.

"There's just a ton of money spent, very hopefully with some results,"
said County Board Chairman James Dwyer of Menomonee Falls, who
speculated that the full cost of the program countywide was "well over
a million dollars."

The county sends $40 per student - about $140,000 a year - to police
departments to help offset their DARE costs, which are often shared by
local municipalities and school districts. In addition, the Sheriff's
Department spends another $282,000 on its own DARE program that
reaches another 3,500 to 3,800 students at a cost of $75 to $80 per
child.

An informal survey of the nine police departments, along with the
county funding and Sheriff's Department program, showed DARE officers'
salaries and supplies exceeded $600,000 last year. Last year, about 30
DARE officers in the county - most of them working part time on DARE
duties - taught about 7,100 students.

The full cost of the program is unknown, because some police
departments don't itemize their DARE expenditures and there is no
central clearinghouse that tracks all the contributions from school
districts and other local sources.

Some costs were offset last year by $143,067 in state and federal
grants and private donations to a non-profit crime prevention group,
Fighting Against Crime Through DARE, created by Bucher. That program
raises $50,000 to $80,000 a year, including profits from a student
poster/calendar sale and court-ordered contributions from drug convicts.

Nonetheless, Sheriff William Kruziki said, "It's an expensive
program."

But like Bucher, Kruziki is a big fan of DARE.

"I think it works," Kruziki said. "A message like this, I think, is
best delivered by an officer."

Bucher and Kruziki are joined by County Executive Daniel Finley who
said, "You've got to have faith that the prevention is working."

But he said there should be "better ways to measure the success of
these prevention programs."

Some say there is no success to measure.

In a University of Kentucky survey published this summer, researchers
tracked former DARE students and their counterparts who didn't
participate in DARE in Lexington, Ky., after 10 years.

"There were no differences in the rates of (drug) use," the study's
lead author, Donald Lynam, said in a telephone interview. "We weren't
particularly surprised, given past studies."

After reviewing 69 national DARE studies, the state Department of
Public Instruction in May concluded: "The literature showed no
convincing evidence that DARE alone will achieve the stated goal of
the program."

Despite that research, 62% of Wisconsin parents, teachers, principals
and alcohol and drug abuse counselors interviewed for the DPI study
said DARE was meeting its objectives "very well."

Ninety percent of school administrators said they would continue the
program.

The DPI study also concluded that DARE had many strengths.
Participants said DARE increased students' knowledge about alcohol and
drug risks, increased self-esteem and respect for authority and
improved students' relations with their families, schools and law
enforcement.

DARE is taught in 76% of the state's 426 school districts.

No one in Waukesha County has studied the correlation between juvenile
drug use and DARE participation.

Bucher said he was "toying" with the idea of funding such a study that
could be done by a Carroll College graduate student.

Started in 1983 in Los Angeles, DARE's core curriculum is a 17-week
program taught one hour a week to fifth- and sixth-graders. The
program has been used widely in Waukesha County schools for 10 years.

For students and educators, there is no debate about the value of the
program.

"Even if it helps a few kids, it's really good," said Waukesha Summit
View Elementary School Principal Dennis Bissett.

He said students look up to DARE officers and soak up their real-life
stories about the consequences of drug abuse.

During lunch after a DARE class, Summit View students gestured wildly
and begged Waukesha DARE officer Dawn Duellman to sit next to them.

Bissett believes the program is working.

"I think, overall, the numbers (on drug use) are down," he
said.

Countywide, juvenile drug arrests more than quadrupled from 54 in 1990
to 256 in 1998, according to the state Office of Justice Assistance.
The numbers peaked in 1995 at 408 and have declined in recent years to
last year's 256 arrests.

Statewide, juvenile drug arrests have risen dramatically without any
declines, from 911 in 1990 to 5,200 in 1998.

Bucher challenged the state's arrest statistics, saying those numbers
often do not match the records of police and prosecutors. Nonetheless,
he acknowledged drug use persists despite the DARE program.

"We're not the silver bullet," Bucher said. "We never were. Is DARE
going to stop kids from using or abusing drugs and alcohol? No.
Unfortunately, it's not. I don't know of any program that will.

"Show me something that is as good or better. Don't come to me with a
problem. Come to me with a solution."

Fifth-graders at Stone Bank Elementary Schoolshare Bucher's enthusiasm
for the program.

On a recent day, prizes lined a classroom shelf. Whoever finishes the
most DARE assignments at home gets first pick of the prizes, Deputy
Mike Haizel reminded.

To the 10-year-olds, the loot offered plenty of incentive. Packers
trading cards. A teddy bear, a Frisbee and a jump rope. Stickers and
pins. Footballs, basketballs and soccer balls.

All were emblazoned with the DARE logo - the same one displayed on the
DARE T-shirts the students and their teacher had donned for class.

"DARE is cool!" one fifth-grade boy told a reporter after Haizel's
lesson on resisting pressures.

At a DARE program at Summit View in Waukesha, 10-year-old Mark
Burmester said, "I think kids need to be more educated about it (drugs)."

DARE's 71-page workbook includes lessons on not only drugs but also
peer pressure, self-esteem, shoplifting, graffiti and guns.

DARE officers say the program builds a positive relationship between
cops and kids.

"I see it working," said Hartland DARE officer Jim Weber. "I see the
look in the kids' eyes when they write their essays."

DARE graduates have tipped officers off when they see peers using
drugs or smoking, Weber added.

Officers cite other success stories:

In Waukesha, the 11-year-old son of Waukesha County's so-called
"cocaine mom," whose highly publicized drug abuse during pregnancy
prompted a change in state law, won second place in a 1998 poster
contest. With his mother watching proudly while on pass from her
treatment center, the youngster was awarded a savings bond for his
drawing. Village of Pewaukee DARE officer Duane Hachtel recalled one
eighth-grade girl who was "extremely silent" in class but then "poured
her heart out" in her final DARE class essay.

She told him that she had been suicidal and that DARE's lessons on
self-esteem and managing stress had helped her cope.

"She said DARE made a difference in her life."

Haizel said he was shocked when a middle-school student walked up to
him one day and said, "I'm so tired of being teased, I'm ready to kill
somebody."

"I felt cold chills down my back," said Haizel, who helped the boy and
his parents get counseling. He also confronted the bullies.

"What would have happened if I wouldn't have been there and he hadn't
trusted me to tell me that?" Haizel said.

There are failures, too. One DARE graduate, now 17, who was praised
for turning in cocaine to police when he was 11, was arrested last
month after his parents found a gun and drugs in his bedroom.

Bucher said he had a DARE savings bond winner offer to return the
money after getting caught with drugs.

Despite the program's shortcomings, Roska, of the Waukesha County
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, said she "absolutely would not"
recommend scrapping DARE.

"Improve what's there," she said.

She would like to see the program link officers with health care
professionals and reinforce the anti-drug message on a yearly basis
for all grades.

DARE has a curriculum for kindergarten through fourth grade and middle
and high school, but very few police departments in Waukesha County
teach those grades because they lack the funding and staff to do so.

To succeed, Roska said, DARE must be part of a multipronged attack
from parents, teachers, the media and drug abuse professionals.

Haizel agreed.

"We only have (students) for 17 hours-you're not going to change a
lifestyle in 17 hours," Haizel said. "It's an ongoing adventure.