Schools don’t have the time or resources to do a good job teaching students about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and so they shouldn’t have the primary responsibility for providing that type of education, a drug- and alcohol-abuse-prevention group concludes, based on a national survey of educators.
Though 37 states require schools to teach students about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, the survey found that schools often don’t have the time or resources to effectively run those types of programs. The survey—which included 3,500 teachers and administrators from elementary, middle, and high schools—found that 44 percent of them said they spend less than five hours a year on efforts to teach prevention of drug and alcohol abuse, and 42 percent said such programs are taught as parts of other courses. Thirty-two percent said that prevention was taught inconsistently or that nothing on the subject was taught in their schools.
The online survey was conducted by Boston-based Join Together, a prevention program based at Boston University.
“Back to School Reality Check” is available from Join Together.
