Coverage of Student Drug Testing Offers Few Challenges to Policies

Abstract

From 1995, the year the U. S. Supreme Court upheld the right of public schools to randomly drug test student athletes,1 until August 2001, when another and more wide-reaching student drug-testing case reached the Court,2 nearly one-third of Arkansas' 310 school districts embraced student drug testing as a perceived deterrent to student drug use. This research, through content analysis, attempted to answer the questions, What types of information did local newspapers in Arkansas provide their readers concerning student drug testing before local school boards adopted drug-testing policies? and What sources were most frequently quoted in articles about student drug testing?Literature ReviewSpurred on. by the National Collegiate Athletic Association's 1986 adoption of drug testing to support fair and equitable competition among athletes,3 and by various national and state survey results showing drug use among students in grades 7-12 had reached significant proportions,4 public schools across the nation5 and in Arkansas implemented various types of drugtesting programs for their student populations. The trend, and indeed the prospect of drug testing in general, led commentators, health professionals and researchers to identify the following salient issues related to student drug testing:1. Rationale for implementing a student drug-testing policy, including perceived high incidence of drug use by school-aged children,6 administrative desire to appear to be doing something to combat drug use by students7 and financial support of the drug-testing business.82. Reliability and accuracy of selfreport drug-use surveys, noting that such surveys sometimes suffer from over-reporting of drug use under-reporting of drug use, and inconsistency among individuals' answers9 and questioning the validity of self-reported drug use among various sub-populations.103. Necessity that a drug-testing program targets students most likely at risk, both for a program's credibility and for its legality.4. Interrelationships among drug testing, extracurricular activities, and drug use, citing possibilities of drugshifting12 and avoiding extracurricular activities,13 as well as the protective aspect of such activities.145. Accuracy of drug tests, citing low accuracy of the fairly inexpensive immunoassay test chosen by some school districtsl5 and the consequences of incorrect test results.166. Protocol of drug-testing programs.177. Legal implications of student drug testing, noting various interpretations of the initial U. S. Supreme Court drug-testing case in 1995.188. Efficacy of drug testing as a deterrent to targeted behaviors.199. Alternatives to drug testing, citing effective, research-based drug education programs20 and drug-use prevention guides for caregivers.21MethodTo determine how Arkansas newspapers covered the development and implementation of drug-testing policies in the state's public schools, each of the state's 310 school districts and the three state-run schools were contacted. Contact persons in 101 districts indicated there were student drug-testing policies in place, while contact persons in nine other districts said implementation of such a policy was being discussed. These contact persons identified 73 newspapers that covered their areas. Using the Associated Press Managing Editors Association categories for categorizing Arkansas newspapers for contest purposes, publications with circulations of less than 8,000 were designated as small newspapers; publications with circulations from 8,000 to 15,000 were designated as mediumsized newspapers; and publications with circulations of more than 15,000 were designated as large newspapers.To obtain relevant newspaper articles, accessible on-line archives of identified newspapers were searched; newspaper editors and reporters were contacted and asked to send article copies; school administrators were contacted and asked to forward copies of all relevant stories on file; and the Arkansas Historical Commission's microfilmed archives of newspapers relevant to this study (12 in all) also were reviewed. …