Pubdate: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 Source: Athens Banner-Herald (GA) Copyright: 2002 Athens Newspapers Inc Contact: http://www.onlineathens.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1535 Author: Dave Williams NEW CURRICULUM D.A.R.E.S CRITICS TO SAY 'YES' TO FUNDING ATLANTA -- Georgia officials should take a hard look at the most popular anti-drug abuse program in the schools to see if it's worth funding, according to a recent state audit. But advocates for the D.A.R.E. program say curriculum changes due to be in place by next fall will have the widely popular initiative on the right track. The report, released by the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts, cites research showing that D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) has no long-term effects on drug-abuse rates among young people. It points to an audit of Arizona's D.A.R.E. program last year that found ''virtually no impact on students' drug-use behaviors.'' But the planned curriculum changes will allow more school districts to offer the course to middle-school students, who are at the age where kids tend to start experimenting with drugs, said Garry Moore of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the special agent who oversees the state's D.A.R.E. program. ''It's going to change the way we do business,'' he said. ''I think it's going to be rejuvenated.'' The lack of D.A.R.E. courses at the middle- and high-school levels is a focus of the state audit's findings. Of the nearly 88,000 Georgia students in public and private schools who took a D.A.R.E. course during the 2000-2001 term, more than 76,000 were elementary students. D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department to teach fifth-graders about the dangers of drugs. The program caught on quickly, and it's now a fixture in about 80 percent of the nation's school districts. While D.A.R.E. is essentially a local program, the GBI trains the police officers who teach the courses in Georgia. D.A.R.E. also received nearly $500,000 in state funding during fiscal year 2001. But Moore said state grant money, an important funding source that was in plentiful supply when the program first caught on in Georgia during the early 1990s, has begun to dry up. He said the curriculum changes will allow school districts that have been hard-pressed to provide D.A.R.E. beyond the elementary level to spread out their funding. The new system calls for reducing the number of weekly lessons in the elementary course from 17 to 10. ''With 10 weeks, we can do the program in the elementary and middle schools with the same amount of effort,'' said Moore. Ralph Lochridge, spokesman for D.A.R.E. America, the Los Angeles-based non-profit group that runs the program, said the shorter course will force instructors to focus on its core anti-drug message, rather than straying into side issues like gang violence. ''The researchers have been saying D.A.R.E. has been asked to do too much,'' he said. ''This is narrower in focus.'' The new curriculum, which was tested recently among 15,500 middle-school students in six major cities, also will use teachers instead of relying just on police officers, and include lessons with more real-life situations. A study released Tuesday by the University of Akron found that the students involved in the test were more likely to reject drugs. The state audit also criticized the Department of Human Resources' drug-abuse prevention efforts as inconsistent from one part of Georgia to another. Brenda Rowe, prevention program chief for the DHR's Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Addictive Diseases, said those shortcomings are being addressed by a recent overhaul that transferred planning responsibilities from regional boards to the state level. D.A.R.E. in Georgia 300 active officers, as of March 2002 120 public school systems, 58 private schools 87,882 students during 2000-2001 school year: Elementary -- 76,126 Middle School -- 10,699 High School -- 1,057 - -- Source: Georgia Bureau of Investigation - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens