What Works: Schools Without Drugs

by United States. Department of Education

Drug use impairs memory, alertness, and achievement. Drugs erode the capacity of students to perform in school, to think and act responsibly. The consequences of using drugs can last a lifetime. The student who cannot read at age 8 can, with effort, be taught at 9. But when a student clouds his mind with drugs, he may become a lifelong casualty. Research tells us that students who use marijuana regularly are twice as likely as their classmates to average D's and F's, and we know that drop-outs are twice as likely to be frequent drug users as graduates.

In addition, drug use disrupts the entire school. When drug use and drug dealing are rampant—when many students often do not show up for class and teachers cannot control them when they do—education throughout the school suffers.

Drug use is found among students in the city and country, among the rich, the poor, and the middle class. Many schools have yet to implement effective drug enforcement measures. In some schools, drug deals at lunch are common. In others, intruders regularly enter the building to sell drugs to students. Even schools with strict drug policies on paper do not always enforce them effectively.

Schools Without Drugs provides a practical synthesis of the most reliable and significant findings available on drug use by school-age youth. It tells how extensive drug use is and how dangerous it is. It tells how drug use starts, how it progresses, and how it can be identified. Most important, it tells how it can be stopped. It recommends strategies—and describes particular communities—that have succeeded in beating drugs. It concludes with a list of resources and organizations that parents, students, and educators can turn to for help.

This book is designed to be used by parents, teachers, principals, religious and community leaders, and all other adults—and students—who want to know what works in drug use prevention. It emphasizes concrete and practical information. An earlier book, a summary of research findings on teaching and learning called What Works, has already proved useful to parents, teachers, and administrators. I hope this book will be as useful to the American people.

This book focuses on preventing drug use. It should be emphasized that the term drug use, as contained in the recommendations in the book, includes the use of alcohol by children. Alcohol is an illegal drug for minors and should be treated as such. This book does not discuss techniques for treating drug users. Treatment usually requires professional help; treatment services are included in the resources section at the end of the book. But the purpose of the book is to help prevent drug use in the first place.

The information in this book is based on the research of drug prevention experts, and on interviews with parent organizations and school officials working in drug prevention in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. Although this volume is a product of the U.S. Department of Education, I am grateful for the assistance the Department received from groups and individuals across the country. It was not possible to include all the information we gathered, but I wish to thank the many groups that offered their help.

No one can be a good citizen alone, as Plato tells us. No one is going to solve our drug problem alone, either. But when parents, schools, and communities pull together, drugs can be stopped. Drugs have been beaten in schools like Northside High School in Atlanta, profiled in this book. Preventing drug experimentation is the key. It requires drug education starting in the first grades of elementary school. It requires clear policies against drug use and consistent enforcement of those policies. And it requires the cooperation of school boards, principals, teachers, law enforcement personnel, parents, and students.

Schools are uniquely situated to be part of the solution to student drug use. Children spend much of their time in school. Furthermore, schools, along with families and religious institutions, are major influences in transmitting ideals and standards of right and wrong. Thus, although the problems of drug use extend far beyond the schools, it is critical that our offensive on drugs center in the schools.

My purpose in releasing this handbook, therefore, is to help all of us—parents and children, teachers and principals, legislators and taxpayers—work more effectively in combating drug use. Knowing the dangers of drugs is not enough. Each of us must also act to prevent the sale and use of drugs. We must work to see that drug use is not tolerated in our homes, in our schools, or in our communities. Because of drugs, children are failing, suffering, and dying. We have to get tough, and we have to do it now.