Pubdate: Thu, 02 Mar 2006
Source: Daily Press (Newport News,VA)
Copyright: 2006 The Daily Press
Contact:  http://www.dailypress.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/585
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

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.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman