A POOR EXCUSE FOR A SCHOOL DRUG PLAN

LIEUTENANT Governor Kerry Healey has a plan for addressing teenage drug
use: school-based drug testing (Page A1, May 17). Perhaps this is really a
jobs-creation plan in disguise, although it's hard to know if it's her job
or the job of lawyers involved in appeals that our tax dollars would be
supporting. Caught in the middle would be local school officials,
presumably acting as enforcers. The plan is public policy at its worst: a
shallow, cynical response to a complex problem that places the burden on
overwhelmed local school systems and does not address the education and
prevention aspects of drug and alcohol abuse. What is her plan for
enforcement? Will schools be responsible for responding to inevitable legal
appeals?

What happens to kids who "screw up"? Will the Romney administration fund
more than two alternative high schools that take in kids who have been
kicked out of their local high schools? It's hard to imagine this kind of
strategy creating anything but chaos.

It's not hard to imagine that the Romney administration is simply after the
$21 million in available federal dollars and will pander to the feds to
this end, even at the cost of effective public policy and the best
long-term interests of parents, children, and local school systems.

SUSAN GUZMICH

Brookline