ANTI-DRUG CURRICULUM SHOULDN'T END WITH DARE

Three Quad-City area school officials are up on drug charges and Davenport
drops DARE.

Ugh, what a message.

Davenport Police Chief Mike Bladel acted boldly when he lopped the Drug
Abuse Resistance and Education program off city budgets and out of city
schools, saying he needs more officers on the street than in classrooms.

True enough, chief, if you were fighting this battle by yourself.

But you don't have to.

The battle isn't for DARE. It is for kids and effective programs that keep
kids away from drugs.

More and more evidence suggests that is not DARE.

DARE always has been a community - not just a police - program and has
enjoyed tremendous Quad-City support.

Before it is dumped, our communities - not just Davenport - need to be
offered a chance to help.

Bladel's proclamation, published Tuesday on these pages, makes you wince
when you read it, especially if you are at all familiar with his record.
The chief was big on DARE, community policing and school programs long
before President Clinton gave police departments the cash to do it.

DARE's problem is that it focuses too narrowly, as if a single fifth-grade
course can offset the barrage of alcohol ads and the ever-present
temptation of illegal drugs continually facing kids.

We wouldn't expect one semester of algebra to turn kids into math wizzes.

That's why DARE seldom passes muster with national evaluators. Iowa's
administrator of Title IV funds - government-ese for school anti-drug money
- - began weaning districts from DARE support four years ago.

In 2000, 81 percent of Iowa school districts had DARE programs. In 2001, it
was down to 77.4 percent.

DARE does a lot of neat things. Keeping kids off drugs is not one of them.

DARE is preparing to introduce a new, more effective curriculum. Better
yet, there are other programs proven to work, including the Lion's Club
Lions Quest training and the Life Skills curriculum.

The challenge in our communities is not to simply pull out of DARE, but to
continue a commitment to more effective drug-abuse education.

As you might imagine, kids will continue to get plenty of drug information
elsewhere.

Any drug-using kid in two states already had a good laugh at Kewanee middle
school Principal Todd Ricketts and school suspension supervisor Pierre
Welcome's bust on methamphetamine-dealing charges.

Most heard about Alleman High School teacher and former head football coach
Dana Just's arrest on felony cocaine-possession charges.

The kids won't need a newspaper editorial to interpret those messages.

The good news is the Quad-City communities' historical support of DARE.
Davenport's program has raised more than $600,000 in the past 10 years.
Last year's golf outing netted $6,000.

The Riverboat Development Authority pitched in $58,000 to Davenport DARE
and an additional $30,000 to Bettendorf DARE since 1993.

The Scott County Regional Authority kicked in $7,008 to Davenport DARE last
spring.

The commitment is there.

The tougher news is that old Quad-Cities conundrum. The same DARE
curriculum is being managed by at least a half-dozen separate police
departments, two separate DARE boards and dozens of separate schools.

Before we cut loose hundreds of kids from these types of programs, let's
show the same Quad-City collaboration, know-how and compassion exhibited in
so many areas.

Quad-City Arts shows we can fund arts enrichment cooperatively. Student
Hunger Drive shows we can reach into schools cooperatively. The
Metropolitan Enforcement Group and Quad-City Bomb Squad shows that police
departments know how to cooperate.

An effective anti-drug-abuse curriculum in Quad-City schools can't be that
far off.