SCHOOL DRUG TESTING SHOULD BE MANDATED

I don't know about other American parents, but I have had it up to my neck
in parents' ranting and raving about testing our students for drug abuse
when they are permitted to participate in extracurricular activities.

When a child overdoses on drugs, we all go about the business of consoling
parents. We are up in arms, parading around talking about what should be
done to teach our kids to stay free of drugs. Yet, in the next breath, we
talk about all the reasons we should not test young people for drugs in
public schools.

The questions I have always raised in today's society -- why do we want our
children to be totally free without the adult supervision we once gave our
young people? I sometimes wonder why children don't really pay attention to
their parents' guidance. I believe our children are tired of finding their
own value system.

In a changing world when both parents have little time to counsel children,
some of us just believe that schools have their hands tied. Many of us
believe that children should not have many restrictions. As you can see,
when children are allowed to roam freely, they nearly always find some
serious mischief to fill the void. Human beings are among a very few
mammals that take 21 years of parental guidance to get them ready to step
out and into an often cruel and cold world.

A huge number of students seek something to hold on to. When children are
left to fetch their own values, most times they will make all of the wrong
choices. Many times the choices will include experimenting with drugs and
sex. Some think we live in promiscuous times where everything is out-of-hand.

Many parents have given up on their children. There are parents who bundle
and take their children to some state agency or some home that provides
shelter for unwanted children. Many of these children are already addicted
to drugs.

There are all sorts of personal and private activities students should hold
dear, but to claim that public school officials should not have the
authority to randomly search for illegal drugs is simply wrong. Students
who will become our next world leaders won't mind the random searches. I
have had several high school students to tell me they would feel a lot
safer and more relaxed if all of them would be searched from time to time.

Now, there is a difference between randomly searching and searching because
a student fits a certain type of drug profile, i.e. a male student who
wears long hair, fancy, loud colored clothes or if a student is black or
Latino. We need to know when our children stray; we don't need or want our
children to become zombies, walking around useless, to both themselves and
society. A useless being, even in today's social and economic environment,
has no place.

What I guess we don't really want to do is to admit that we don't really
have time for our children. Giving schools the right to drug test tells the
parent once again that we are turning parental duties over to schools.

Perhaps the only reason that any school would want to do any drug testing
is because they could at least recognize students with serious problems,
and testing could pass this information on to parents. Nationwide, I think
that all public schools should work like heck to develop a drug testing
program.

The American public school system must come to realize that if we want a
product we must remove from the learning environment those objects that
destroy the mission of public schools. Can we truly educate our children in
public schools when we don't have control of the student or the school
environment?

For the well-being of our students, let's give our school administrators
permission to test for drugs, period. In the long run, we all stand to
gain, including the student.