Purpose
Using illegal drugs has been problem affecting different age levels. People use illegal drugs for so many different reasons. Even high school students do drugs in order to enhance their performance in academic, athletic, or extracurricular activities. Although not every high school student uses drugs to modify student’s skills, this ill-defined drug use in high school bring up the question whether to do random testing among high school students. People have different views on random testing. Some people might prefer random testing among high school students, while others say there should not be such a test for drug use. Viewing at two different sides, people might wonder which topics are investigated on the issue of random testing on illegal drug use among high school students.
In order for people to know the issue of random testing, they need to realize how serious drug issues are. Because the random and suspicion based tests are different among many other kinds of methods, both tests are comparable each other. Do students have rights to avoid both random and suspicion based testing? Does random testing work? How accurate is it to do random testing? Is there any poll or survey data that clearly shows the actual situation? Random drug testing is being widely discussed concerning student’s rights, accuracy of drug test, and comparison of public opinion. Overall, I am leaning towards random drug testing in high schools because I believe it would not be fair to treat students who do not use drugs with who do drugs.
The Term Paper on Education In France Students School Higher
The education system in France: (source: European Union) I. Information on Community Law II. Information concerning the national education system III. Useful addresses I. Information on Community Law The fundamental principle of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality between students studying in a foreign country and national students applies as regards admission to an educational or ...
Topics to be investigated
Random testing and suspicion based tests are the most common tests for drug use. Both tests show whether people have used drugs, but is it really necessary for the government to do both random and suspicion based tests in high school? The real issue here is which test should be used.
The random tests seem to work in most cases. Shamoo and Moreno state in their research that Tallmadge points out Oregon state district court decided to do mandatory drug testing for high school athletes (26).
The Oregon state district court decision showed the need for the high schools to test students randomly. Many people might be affected by the Oregon state court decision on random drug tests. While others have no effects on random drug tests regardless what the court decision was. In the article “The curious rejection of drug testing by American schools” it states, “Objective analysts makes tough decisions because they believe school drug testing is unauthorized” (Jacobs, 13).
This quote argues against mandatory drug testing because it is unconstitutional. Random drug tests are usually used as valid poll data to recognize people who did not report their use of drugs.
Suspicion based tests are used based on student’s behavior. For many people, suspicion based drug tests can be very attractive because they are recognized as an objective way of detecting student illicit drug use. Yamaguchi states in his article, “The most common reason for drug testing was for cause or suspicion” (162).
People might say reason for suspicion based tests is the easiness of recognizing one’s drug use. For example, people can catch students who use drugs based on the weird qualities of students’ behavior. It is still a big issue whether the suspicion based tests are biased or not. Unfairness on suspicion based tests seems to exist in our society because judging drug use solely on people’s behavior is injustice. For instance, I was so happy because I got A on my rhetoric paper. So without taking any drugs I acted little different than I usually did, but the policeman caught me on the street because of my weird action. Although my behavior was abnormal, getting caught by policeman would not be fair. From my example, it is easy to say that the policeman used unfair treatment to catch me. More biased examples include race, gender, and age, which all are serious problems in our society.
The Essay on First Amendment Rights People Student School
On June 21, 1788 Congress ratified the US constitution. This historic document contained the powers that congress would have under this democratic government. The first amendment specifically details several powers that would be excluded from this list. The first amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or ...
Everyone should remember that their rights for the random drug might not be protected because taking a random drug test is depending on the school. Even though the US Supreme Court decided to have random testing in high schools, students have the right not to take random testing. Even some out going students can protest against the governments’ random drug policy. However, if students are not taking random drug tests, they are not able to participate in any activities in school. So it is a good idea that students take the random test and enjoy their school activities as much as they can.
According to Louria’s article, the Fourth Amendment states people should have rights to be secure against unreasonable searches (35).
Even though the Fourth Amendment says people have rights to be secure at any time, there are some arguments about people’s rights. Although the Fourth Amendment says people have rights to be secure, people’s rights can not always be protected by law. Lindsay Earls, a high school student, argues the U.S Constitution’s protections for people against unreasonable searches were violated by random drug testing (5).
Earls is not the only case; many other people are suffering from rights issues because of random drug testing in high schools. Even people who have took random drug tests can support a student like Earl; their rights being violated. According to the article Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, “Although US Supreme Court allowed random drug testing of students, New Jersey courts relied on the states’ constitution, which provides protections from unreasonable searches and seizures” (8).
If there are people suffering from rights violations, this example is good news for those people.
The Essay on Drug Abuse on High School Students
The hypothesis for this report is that as an individual increases drug use, their success within their education decreases. To prove this is true, there were many investigations involved in the process. Firstly, there was secondary research provided in order to see the drug use of all teenagers in Ontario, as well as dropout rates in Ontario as a whole. As well as definitions, general drug ...
The Vernonia case is another example that is closely related to students’ rights. The Vernonia case allowed schools to use suspicionless drug tests for the student athletes. According to Boyd, he states “The Vernonia particularly diminished students’ privacy expectations” (169).
Although there is no scientific proof on Vernonia school district’s student drug use rates, this clearly shows that students’ privacy is being ignored. From this, people can be divided to two different arguments; one group hoping for the rules of random drug tests to be changed, while the other group just follows the rules set by the government.
The Supreme Court made a decision on random drug testing, but the question was how accurate is it to do any drug testing? Many people have different views on the accuracy of drug tests. Before people get into the issue of accuracy, people need to think about the cost of drug tests. In terms of accuracy of drug test, people can not deny the costs of the drug testing program. Tony Locy states “Only 5% of the nation’s schools began drug testing programs for athletes, mainly because of the cost of such programs” (1).
The most common type of drug testing is the urine test which only costs minimum of three dollars. Since the urine test is very cheap, it often brings inaccurate results. Some people may prefer to use urine tests, while others prefer not to use urine tests. This argument develops from its accuracy of results. There are some people who try to avoid using urine tests because they are afraid to get false results; getting negative results. With many arguments on urine tests, there is a method called GC-MS, which costs a lot of money. In Hawkins’s article, Kent Holtorf states, “GC-MS is ninety five percent to ninety nine percent accurate” (47).
Even though GC-MS costs lots of money, the accuracy of the test is very high. Like urine tests, people can have different ideas on GC-MS. Some people might want to use GC-MS because it is very accurate and brings perfect results. Others might not use GC-MS because they can not afford for the tests. Even for the schools, if the government does not pay for the test, no school would want to adapt GC-MS analysis because it costs lots of money for them. Accuracy and costs are the problems that still need to be solved.
The Essay on To What Extent Should High School Students Be Allowed To
To What Extent Should High School Students be allowed to Exercise Freedom of Speech While on Campus I think that nowadays to deal with an issue of students free speech rights is a tough problem for High School administrators. The matter is that students free speech is protected by the First Amendment. Thus it means that students are allowed to exercise free speech while on campus. But what should ...
Does random drug testing actually work? Some might say random drug tests have strong effects on student’s drug use, while others say they do not have any effects. There have been many surveys and polls about random drug testing. An important fact from Yamaguchi’s research is that suspicion based testing was slightly more effective than any kind of drug tests (163).
There has been a positive result after screening students for three years in Flemington, New Jersey. In Education Week, Bowman quotes, a 1999 students’ poll of in Flemington, N.J, whose “school’s 2,900 students showed decreases in 20 of 28 categories of drug use” (1).
Despite such a fact, many people maybe happy with positive results in Flemington. However, it seems like common sense that if students are warned, they could be caught getting high any day in school, and they’d be less likely to risk it. It is hard to say that the random test does work because these statistical data are from only some particular areas.
On the issue of using random drug tests for high school, rights, accuracy, and survey data have been discussed. Whether or not for school to use random drug tests, people still needs to consider their rights. People also need to think about the costs and the accuracy of the tests. They can not always rely on what school or government says. People should speak up so that any kind of system can be changed including random drug testing in high school. In order to have a best outcome of random drug testing, both the government and the school need to figure out ways to improve the system.
