THE WRONG LESSONS

Here's What Random Drug Testing Will Teach Students

If the Williamsburg-James City County School Board adopts the random
student drug testing program recommended by Superintendent Gary
Mathews, a few years from now a student applying to college may
submit an essay, like the hypothetical creation below, that paints a
dismaying picture of the consequences.

What Doesn't Have To Be

The topic for this essay is "A new kind of education: What I learned
when my school district instituted random student drug testing." It
will explain why, on my admission application, you will not see any
extra-curricular activities that involved competition or fell under
the auspices of the Virginia High School League. I did not join any
sports teams or work on the yearbook or play in the band, as taking
part in any of those activities, or many others at my school, would
have made me subject to the random testing the School Board
implemented in 2006.

When the board made that rash move, I was just entering high school.
My parents and I agonized then and over the next four years about how
to respond to the board's decision to subject to random testing any
student who participates in any competitive extra-curricular activity
or (until a court threw this out as unconstitutional) parked at
school. We opted out of that intrusive, punitive policy - but at the
price of opting out of valuable extra-curricular activities. Our
choice was difficult, but I learned a lot from it.

I learned that schools can teach very damaging lessons. Here are what
some students at my school learned:

That it's public policy to compromise parental responsibility. When a
student is discovered to have used drugs, the policy takes the
decision about how to respond away from parents by mandating that the
student see a school counselor. After a second positive test, it
dictates that parents must use the substance abuse program selected
by the schools or get school approval for any alternative. Educators
bewail parents' failure to live up to their responsibilities, then
undercut them.

That punishment, not prevention or intervention, is the right
response to children's problem. Testing advocates talked about
prevention, but this policy is about punishment, or hanging that
threat over students' heads. For a first positive test, a student is
kicked off a team or out of an activity for a minimum of two weeks -
that's punitive. What's really bizarre is that the school is
monitoring - and doling out consequences for-behavior that happens
off campus and that might have no effect on school performance.

That we should roll over and sacrifice our rights - our
constitutional protections against search and seizure - just because
some heavy-handed authority tells us to. At the time this was being
debated, the nation was embroiled in debate about how far we must go
in compromising our rights in time of war. W-JCC schools teach the
next generation to surrender easily. What would the Founders say to
our discounting the rights for which they fought?

That we have no claim to privacy. No group is as good at keeping
track of its members as a school full of adolescents. If a student is
called out of a class to take a test, then disappears from the team
or band practice for a couple of weeks, rumors fly and there's no
such thing as confidentiality. Families have no claim to it either,
with administrative staff, student assistance counselor and activity
adviser or coach all knowing the results of their child's test, and
the counselor privy to intimate details of their family life. My
family decided we didn't want that kind of information floating
around school; other families in this community now wish they'd made
the same decision.

That sloppy policy is good policy. The testing program imposes
constitutionally suspect intrusions on a large number of students
because a tiny minority violated school policies. It invades their
privacy in the absence of any indication they have committed crimes
or broken school rules. It targets students who have the grades,
motivation and parental support to be involved with extra-curricular
activities but ignores the ones most likely to use drugs: those with
academic problems, those not engaged in school life. It teaches
tomorrow's citizens not to hold their government to the common-sense test.

That educators are really enforcers. At a hearing on the policy, a
parent evoked a startling image of a principal with a book in one
hand and a specimen cup in the other. I've seen that vision become
reality. For many students, especially those having trouble at home,
school was the place they could turn to and trust adults. Now school
is more like a police state, with the principal demanding urine
specimens and club advisers enforcing suspensions from after-school
activities. The policy has driven a wedge between students and the
adults they should be able to count on.

This future does not have to come true. The School Board can, and
should, reject random student drug testing on March 7.