DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS: FEDERAL FAILURES PROVE CASE FOR OVERSIGHT

More than a decade and $6 billion after Congress began funding the Safe and
Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, the U.S. Department of Education only
last July began requiring school districts to spend federal anti-drug money
on programs backed by research.

A task force of 18 national experts is now working to define for the
Department of Education just what "research-based" and "effective" mean when
it comes to anti-drug and anti-violence programs.

The long-overdue exercise comes only after a shocking waste of money on
programs that have had little effect on either school safety or drug use.
The programs, as described in Sunday's Forum section, range from purchase of
metal detectors designed to keep guns off campus to anti-drug "edutainment"
by free-lance puppeteers and motivational speakers, to fishing trips and
drug-free party kits.

In a well-meaning nod to local control, school districts were given free
rein to spend the anti-drug money as they thought best. But few educators
are equipped to examine the hundreds of anti-drug programs on the market,
and few teachers are trained in effective delivery of the anti-drug message,
let alone in counseling young substance abusers.

Some districts qualified for as little as $200 of the federal funding --
hardly enough to justify the paperwork involved.

And nobody was monitoring whether the programs local districts chose were
useless, or even did more harm than good. Given how the federal program was
structured, it's no wonder money was used in some questionable, if not
ridiculous, ways.

That the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act has so far proved to be a national
embarrassment should serve as a cautionary tale for other untested school
programs now being pushed for their political appeal.

Whether a policy is about social programs or social promotion, it should be
judged on outcomes, not popular notions of what might seem to work. School
districts should be given flexibility to pick programs that fit local needs,
but then should be held accountable for results.

The tale of the federal drug-free schools effort is also useful as a
reminder that public money aimed at solving social problems should be
targeted for use where problems are known to exist.

Spreading money in a thin veneer over every school district in the land
leaves not enough for those districts that need the most help.

The challenge now is not to scrap the anti-drug program altogether because
of its misguided past, but to target those federal dollars to the districts
that most need it. Those districts should be given a choice only among a
list of programs with a successful track record.

Research so far shows the most effective programs teach kids how to
skillfully handle all sorts of relationships with others -- those "life
skills" that help us survive difficult situations and painful emotions
without resorting to drugs, alcohol or violence.

Those skills are tough to teach, especially to children who have few adults
around to model them successfully. But surely dollars focused in that
direction would do more to help kids than puppets that just say no.

Checked-by: Don Beck