Change in Congress Due To Republicans - Essay Example

A student testing for drugs for the first time may find it a rather daunting, and emotional experience, but they should be aware that they are not there to judge any of the subjects; nor the educational faculty. The student tester must be professional; impartial observation, amiability without familiarity, and also the ability to keep their focus in very testing circumstances. The student will be assessed in all of these areas, and also upon their ability to understand their role in the testing of teenagers, and the statistical likelihood that any student they meet will test positive for drugs.

Drug testing is a contentious issue, with some seeing the Supreme Court's rulings in cases such as the Board of Education V. Earls (2002), as allowing a much broader invasion of student privacy than ever before; others argue that students should be required to submit to urine testing as part of the ever pressing war on drug use in America. As early as April 1999, Congress had been under increasing pressure to implement drug tests in schools, with Representatives arguing that: Increasing public concern about the nature of drug use in and around schools made the government choose a selective policy of urine testing to reassure parents that students were not taking drugs in class.

It has been claimed that High School Senior Surveys shows a decline in drug use since the 1979, and that daily use of marijuana has fallen "From 10.3% to 4.0%" (Morgan, 1988). His conclusion, that marijuana use has slumped ("Declined significantly"), does not stem fear about student use of the drug, and this is what must be borne in mind when considering the role of routine urine testing in school admissions. Testing in SchoolsWhile many object to the use of random drug testing as a condition of admission to school, which is prohibited anyway as the school is a public body, this is not the case for extracurricular pastimes such as sports.

The Supreme Court also noted that: Students are required to submit to physical examinations and Vaccinations which indicates that students have a lesser privacyinterest than the general public.(Missouri Centre, 2002)Moreover, while there is some evidence that Drug testing of any kind, including for cause or suspicion, was not A significant predictor of Marijuana use." (Yamaguchi, et al, 2003ii)Routine drug testing is a standard procedure in sporting competitions and in the workplace: it should not therefore be seen as an over zealous requirement.

"Drug-testing in schools and the workplace is not simply about individual behaviour" (Campbell, 2004, 86), it is, of course, also about the control that the school has over the children in its care. It is a school's responsibility to act as loco parentis and to enforce the law. Concerns over the invasion of a child's privacy during urine testing is dependant upon the idea of close observation of the child making the specimen, and then handing over this specimen to be tested by strangers (Boire, 2004).

Of course, issues of trust also make things difficult: Routine drug testing implies, not merely that the tester mistrusts one student (Bailey, 1997, 5), but the entire generation. It may also make students more reluctant to participate in outside-hours activity - with the