DARE Dropped in Toledo Schools

The Toledo Blade ^ | June 11, 2002 | Toledo Blade

[E Rocc]

Citing evidence that the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education program is ineffective at altering youths

[E Rocc]

One of the most dangerous things about DARE is the lies. They tell kids all these horror stories about marijuana and the kids figure out it's just not true, and assume what they were told about heroin and PCP must also be lies.

That's the case with most "drug education" programs. Indeed, its one of the actual reasons marijuana can be a "gateway" drug: kids learn that what they heard about pot is bullmodell and they think that's also the case with the harder drugs.

To me the dangerous things about DARE are the way it encourages kids to hide the details of the program from their parents, and the condoning of anonymous snitching.

-Eric

[E Rocc]

What does anti-drug education have to do with the WOD?

The War on Drugs depends on people trusting the government more than family and friends, and is greatly benefitted by snitching. DARE encourages these attitudes.

-Eric

[Kerberos]

"They tell kids all these horror stories about marijuana and the kids figure out it's just not true, and assume what they were told about heroin and PCP must also be lies."

BINGO

[E Rocc]

DARE is dopey. It insults the kids' intelligence, if they have any.

One of my kids didn't get a great grade in health. He maintains it was because of one multiple choice question on the DARE unit (unlikely). The question was "What does DARE stand for?" One of the answers was "Drugs are Really Excellent!"

He said, "Dad--I had to check that, it was too funny. I wasn't going to bend over and fish around for the PC answer they wanted."

A pre-Father's Day congrats on raising him well. >:)

-Eric

[Dakmar]

You are correct. I probably should have said One of the most dangerous things for the kids involved. Of course having their parents carted off to prison for burning a doob isn't going to do them much good, either. It's amazing how people change their tune about governement brainwashing in public schools when the subject is drugs.

[Jagdgewehr]

The War on Drugs depends on people trusting the government more than family and friends, and is greatly benefitted by snitching. DARE encourages these attitudes.

I can see where this aspect is a concern.

[Mo1]

SUPPORT FREE REPUBLIC

Donate Here By Secure Server

Or mail checks to
FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794

or you can use

PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com

Thank you Registered!
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD

[E Rocc]

You are correct. I probably should have said One of the most dangerous things for the kids involved. Of course having their parents carted off to prison for burning a doob isn't going to do them much good, either. It's amazing how people change their tune about governement brainwashing in public schools when the subject is drugs.

Since its a form of psychological treatment, federal law requires that schools obtain affirmative consent from parents before subjecting their children to DARE. Even national DARE recognizes that they are subject to this law. Many if not most districts ignore it.

-Eric

[Dakmar]

Interesting, I did not know that. Is refusing to sign the form enough to mandate a full cavity search?

[Kobyashi1942]

Citing evidence that the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education program is ineffective at altering youths’ behavior as they get older, Toledo police Chief Michael Navarre dropped DARE instruction in Toledo, Washington Local, and Catholic elementary schools.

I can confirm that DARE is a waste of time. The vast majority of kids I tutor are habitual users of Marijuana on a near daily basis, and they have all been through the DARE program. Cocaine and meth are now becoming the rage among the Catholic school kids.

Drug use among the kids is getting so bad that they sometimes mock the LAPD officer who speaks to them at the DARE pep talks.

[Suzie_Cue]

now if it were only that easy to get rid of the just as ineffectual "War on drugs" program.

[Pearls Before Swine]

A pre-Father's Day congrats on raising him well. >:)

Thanks. He's a keeper.

[sixmil]

The fact that these guys and the rest of the WOD zealots can not appreciate the difference between marajuana, a harmless plant, and crystal meth, a dangerous chemical, spells their eventual doom. One can only hope they will not go down with guns ablazing.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Actually, this discussion brings to mind a bigger issue. Yes, kids can see through isolated phoniness. But, for that to occur, they need some other basis for reference. I remember always thinking that the Nazi and Communist posters of the patriotic youth or farm workers (happy sickle bearers, for example) were laughably silly. I had a different place to view them from, growing up in post-WWII America. However, if you don't have a different set of experiences, these pieces of propaganda are distressingly effective. Look at, for example, madrassas, or the Palestinian explosive belt death cult, or the Hitler Youth.

DARE may be silly, but only because its comically inept and badly done. It does encourage the kids to rat out their parents. It would be evil if it were more effective.

[cruiserman]

"We’re not going to walk away from drug education in the elementary schools," Chief Navarre said, later calling it "an important aspect of a child’s education."

Perhaps, but done in the home versus in the gov't schools.

[anniegetyourgun]

This article reports the results of a five-year, longitudinal evaluations of the effectiveness of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.), a school-based primary drug prevention curriculum designed for introduction during the last year of elementary education. D.A.R.E. is the most widely disseminated school-based prevention curriculum in the United States.

Twenty-three elementary schools were randomly assigned to receive D.A.R.E. and eight were designated comparison schools. Students in the D.A.R.E. schools received 16 weeks of protocol-driven instruction and students in the comparison schools received a drug education unit as part of the health cirriculum. All students in the comparison schools received a drug education unit as part of the health curriculum. All students were pretested during the 6th grade prior to delivery of the programs, post-tested shortly after completion, and resurveyed each subsequent year through 10th grade. Three-stage mixed effects regression models were used to analyze these data.

No significant differences were observed between intervention and comparison schools with respect to cigarette, alcohol, or marijuana use during the 7th grade, approximately one year after completion of the program, or over the full five-year measurement interval. Significant intervention effects in the hypothesized direction were observed during the 7th grade for measures of students' general and specific attitudes toward drugs, the capability to resist peer pressure, and estimated level of drug use by peers. Over the full measurement interval, however, average trajectories of change for these outcomes were similar in the intervention and comparison conditions.

The findings of this five-year prospective study are largely consonant with the results obtained from prior short-term evaluations of the D.A.R.E. curriculum, which have reported limited effects of the program upon drug use, greater efficacy with respect to attitudes, social skills, and knowledge, but a general tendency for curriculum effects to decay over time. The results of this study underscore the need for more robust prevention programming targeted specifically at risk factors, the inclusion of booster sessions to sustain positive effects, and greater attention to interrelationships between developmental processes in adolescent substance use, individual level characteristics.

[mafree]

Thanks for the ping.

I'm not sure how I feel about DARE, but I hope it doesn't supplant parental responsibility to teach kids about drugs.

[Jagdgewehr]

That's a start. Thank you.

[E Rocc]

I'm not sure how I feel about DARE, but I hope it doesn't supplant parental responsibility to teach kids about drugs.

Kids in DARE are encouraged not to take their DARE materials home. There's clearly a strong suggestion in the program that parents are not to be included.

-Eric

[anniegetyourgun]

Thank you for being willing to have a civil discussion on the matter. It's nice to be able to investigate issues without all the irrationality and name-calling that typically follows these kinds of threads.