Education Program- Student Drug Testing

Education Program

Drug Testing Passes High Court Examination

Random drug testing in schools has fueled significant controversy surrounding student constitutional rights. Courts have ruled inconsistently on the issue, producing a lengthy case history for the subject.

The recent United States Supreme Court ruling in The Board of Education of Independent School District Number 92 of Pottawatomie County vs. Earls is significant because it is the first high court ruling that supports broadening the student population that may be tested without suspicion.

Ruling proponents say that the sacrifice of student rights is worth the outcome if it reduces drug use. Critics say the testing is costly, inconclusive and unworthy of diminishing students' liberties. Drug testing in schools is an issue that likely will maintain interest in the court of public opinion.

See NCSL's synopsis of previous U.S. Supreme Court Rulings.

News and Local Responses

University of Michigan: Institute for Social Research
Relationship Between Student Illicit Drug Use and School Drug Testing Policies
Drug testing of students in schools does not deter drug use, University of Michigan researchers have concluded, based on a large, multi-year national sample of the nation's high schools and middle schools. The National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded study's findings were published in the Journal of School Health.
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/text/ryldjpom03.pdf

Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan/ National Institute for Drug Abuse (2003)
Relationship Between Student Illicit Drug Use and School Drug-Testing Policies
"The largest nationwide study of student drug testing has found no difference in drug use rates between students of schools that have drug testing programs and those that do not. The study points to research that demonstrates that the strongest predictor of student drug use is students' attitudes toward drug use and perceptions of peer use....The American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Education Association, and the American Public Health Association reached the same conclusions in their friend-of-the- court brief in the case of Pottawatomie v. Earls.
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/text/ryldjpom03.pdf

Washington Post
Drug Tests Backed for Broader Pool of Students
Justices Approve Monitoring of Participants in All Extracurricular Activities, Not Just Athletics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54482-2002Jun27.html

Washington Post
Schools Uneasy on Random Drug Tests
Area Students, Parents Cite Privacy Concerns After High Court Ruling; Others Point to Costs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58788-2002Jun27.html

Background and Case History Analysis The Supreme Court's Ruling
By a vote of 5-to-4, the court ruled that local school officials' responsibility for the health and safety of their students can outweigh those students' concerns about privacy.
View the text.
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/27jun20021045/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/01pdf/01-332.pdf

Supreme Court Justices Explain their Rulings
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-332.ZS.html

Southern Illinois University Law Journal, Carbondale, IL
Random Urinalysis Testing of Student Athletes: the "Reasonable" Resolution of a Complex Problem: Vernonia School District vs. Acton, 115 S. Ct. 2386 (1995). by Diane S. Swanson
http://www.law.siu.edu/lawjour/21_3/swanson.htm

ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education New York, NY
School Safety and the Legal Rights of Students
ERIC/CUE Digest, Number121
ERIC Identifier: ED414345
"In ensuring school safety, the courts have sought to balance students' constitutional rights with the need for safety and freedom from violence in the schools. At present, the balance is thoroughly tilted towards efforts to effect tough safety and drug policies in the schools and against any extension of the current scant constitutional rights students enjoy."
http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed414345.html

Indiana University: Indiana Prevention Resource Center
Current Issues in Drug Abuse Prevention: Suspicionless Drug Testing in Schools
"Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in the Vernonia case, that public schools had the power to require students who participate in athletics and certain other activities to agree to be subject to random, suspicionless drug tests, a large number of schools in Indiana have adopted such policies .... Most public school drug testing programs use a low-cost immunoassay urine test, usually costing between $20 and $40 per sample tested. This type of test is subject to many possible sources of error, and often is not sensitive enough to accomplish the goals of the proposers."
http://www.drugs.indiana.edu/issues/suspicionless.html

Cato Journal (Cato Institute)
Compensating Behavior and the Drug Testing of High School Athletes
"On June 26, 1995, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Vernonia School District. 47J vs. Acton that middle-school and high-school athletes can be required to submit to suspicionless drug tests as a condition of athletic participation. Although the decision removed a major constitutional roadblock to the adoption of such programs by public schools nationwide, the response was initially tepid: as of January 1996, six months after the ruling, only 1 percent of the country's 16,000 public high schools had implemented random drug-testing programs. For many schools, the financial barrier of drug testing ($20 to $30 per standard drug screen; $100 per steroid test) proved far harder to surmount than the constitutional barrier (Dohrmann 1996).
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n3-5.html

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Student Drug Testing Information
http://www.aclu.org/StudentsRights/StudentsRightslist.cfm?c=157

Stakeholders Speak Out

Below are perspectives on school drug testing policy issues by students, educators and administrators.

Salon.com
Why Drug Tests Flunk
"If the Supreme Court rules in favor of drug testing in public schools, will students come clean? Kids at schools in Indiana, where drug tests rule, say no way."
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2002/04/22/drug_testing/?x

Education Week
Testing the Limits Of School Drug Tests
"Lindsay Earls remembers the first time she was selected for a random drug test at Tecumseh High School here."
http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=26drug.h21

Washington State Schools Superintendent waxes on U.S. Supreme Court decisions and potential impact on Washington schools
http://www.k12.wa.us/Press/pressreleases/voucherdrugtesting.asp

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