Pubdate: Fri, 17 Feb 2012
Source: Arizona Daily Sun (AZ)
Copyright: 2012 Arizona Daily Sun
Contact: http://news.azdailysun.com/opinion/letter_submit.cfm
Website: http://www.azdailysun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1906

RETOOLING OF DARE SHOULD INVOLVE TEACHERS AND PARENTS, TOO

When a student flunks out, it's time for second-guessing by parents 
and teachers, too.

The same holds for a drug-resistance curriculum like DARE. Police 
officers in fifth-grade classrooms need course materials that have an 
impact and reinforcement from parents and the culture at large.

The fact that DARE officers are being withdrawn from the fifth grade 
and possibly reinserted into ninth grade with an upgraded curriculum 
should be no reflection on the officers themselves. The course 
content and teaching techniques have been standardized across the 
nation for two decades -- if it was going to work in Flagstaff, it 
would have worked elsewhere, too.

Unfortunately, it took that long to do longitudinal studies of 
student behavior in subsequent grades, with control groups to account 
for all kinds of variables. The studies concluded that the effect of 
the DARE curriculum on student drug and alcohol involvement was 
limited to about 18 months, no matter the community, the demographic 
group or the presenters.

In a time of limited financial resources, the Flagstaff Police 
Department is right to pull back and ask where in the schools -- if 
anyplace -- their officers might be put to better use. State and 
local surveys of middle and high school students have shown that at 
least a third say they have tried marijuana, with even more drinking 
alcohol reguarly and smoking cigarettes. The abuse of prescription 
drugs like the stimulant Adderall is also a concern -- about a fifth 
of all students say they have done so.

Even when allowing for youthful exaggeration, those figures are 
troubling, especially when the idea behind DARE is to get to students 
while they are still at an impressionable age and presumably before 
they have started to experiment with drugs.

One question that the DARE findings raise is whether drug-resistance 
education should be offered on a more sustained basis in both the 
middle schools and high schools. It's possible to imagine not just 
police officers visiting classrooms but teachers making drugs the 
subject of lessons in civics, history, economics and even chemistry classes.

Some might worry that such exposure will just tempt young people to 
experiment even more with what they are learning in the classroom. 
But with drug and alcohol themes playing prominent roles in many 
television dramas and music videos, along with the Internet providing 
a ready source of information, it seems naive to think that 
discussing drugs in schools will tip students over the edge into abuse.

If anything, we'd hope that educators can help students put drugs and 
alcohol into a context that makes the consequences of abuse, 
dependence and addiction more relevant and long-lasting. Those lesson 
plans should also be shared with parents in the belief that families 
could and should play a major role in a child's behavioral development.

When all of us start sharing responsibility for the drugs and alcohol 
that our young people abuse, a curriculum like DARE has a better 
chance of succeeding.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom