Con+(against)

=**Just Say No to Mandatory Drug Testing in School**=
 * 1) The majority of school officials - including administrators, teachers, coaches, school board members - have chosen not to implement drug testing programs. With their concerns rooted in knowledge and practical experience, school officials object to drug testing for a variety of reasons, including the cost of testing, the invasion of privacy and the unfair burden that student drug testing places on schools. For many educators and school officials, drug testing simply fails to reflect the reality of what works to establish safe school environments.
 * 2) The researchers at the University of Michigan conducted a more extensivestudy later that year with an enlarged sample of schools, an additional year of data and an increased focus on random testing programs. The updated results reinforced their previous conclusions: "So, does drug testing prevent or inhibit student drug use? Our data suggest that, as practiced in recent years in American secondary schools, it does not...The two forms of drug testing for reducing student drug use - random testing applied to all students...and testing of athletes - did not produce encouraging results." The follow-up study was published in 2003 as part of the Youth, Education and Society (YES) Occasional Papers Series sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
 * 3)  The first large-scale national study on student drug testing found virtually no difference in rates of drug use between schools that have drug testing programs and those that do not. Based on data collected between 1998 and 2001 from 76,000 students nationwide in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, the studey found that drug testing did not have an impact on illicit drug use amoung students, including athletes.
 * 4)    In a 2005 report evaluating the available evidence, Professor Neil McKeganey critiqued the methodology and biases of the studies repeatedly presented in support of random student drug testing, saying, "It is a matter of concern that student drug testing has been widely developed within the USA...on the basis of the slimmest available research evidence."