"Do the Parenting For Me" Quote of the Day
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"If he doesn't like testing, I really don't care. I think it's a wonderful tool. It creates the fear that they could be tested."
--Robyn Tialavela, parent
There are several sad takeaways in this feature article in the Los Angeles Times about the quiet rise of random, suspicionless drug testing of high school students. Increasing questions of test accuracy, increasing questions of the psychological impact on students, no questions whatsoever from the federal government (which is pushing random testing at every opportunity). No discussion of the illegitimate slippery-slope bootstrapping by the Supreme Court from one case ("drugs are especially dangerous to student athletes") to the next ("oh, and to the chess club, too").
But I'm still stuck on stupid — i.e., Ms. Tialavela's terrifyingly oblivious remark.
It's quite simple really: If drug testing is such "a wonderful tool," then why not — pardon my childless impudence — do the drug testing yourself? Home drug tests are ubiquitously available, and remarkably inexpensive. Demand creates its own supply. Yay (?) for capitalism!
It's the "FCC or V-chip" debacle all over again. The entertainment industry, willingly or reluctantly, gave whiny parents the tools they needed to "protect" their children from the big bad television, and still they want the government to do their work for them — and for everyone else too — in the form of broadcast censorship for all. Give these parents a hammer, suddenly they want a carpenter. "For the children..."
So too with drug testing. Some parents think random, suspicionless drug testing of their students is a neat-o idea; some don't. Drug testing kits are not a public good; there need be no free riders. Parents can, on their own time and their own dime, give their children the gift of distrust the same way they can give them a car or an iPod. Leave the schools, and their neighbors' kids, out of it.
(Via CrimProf Blog.)
--Robyn Tialavela, parent
There are several sad takeaways in this feature article in the Los Angeles Times about the quiet rise of random, suspicionless drug testing of high school students. Increasing questions of test accuracy, increasing questions of the psychological impact on students, no questions whatsoever from the federal government (which is pushing random testing at every opportunity). No discussion of the illegitimate slippery-slope bootstrapping by the Supreme Court from one case ("drugs are especially dangerous to student athletes") to the next ("oh, and to the chess club, too").
But I'm still stuck on stupid — i.e., Ms. Tialavela's terrifyingly oblivious remark.
It's quite simple really: If drug testing is such "a wonderful tool," then why not — pardon my childless impudence — do the drug testing yourself? Home drug tests are ubiquitously available, and remarkably inexpensive. Demand creates its own supply. Yay (?) for capitalism!
It's the "FCC or V-chip" debacle all over again. The entertainment industry, willingly or reluctantly, gave whiny parents the tools they needed to "protect" their children from the big bad television, and still they want the government to do their work for them — and for everyone else too — in the form of broadcast censorship for all. Give these parents a hammer, suddenly they want a carpenter. "For the children..."
So too with drug testing. Some parents think random, suspicionless drug testing of their students is a neat-o idea; some don't. Drug testing kits are not a public good; there need be no free riders. Parents can, on their own time and their own dime, give their children the gift of distrust the same way they can give them a car or an iPod. Leave the schools, and their neighbors' kids, out of it.
(Via CrimProf Blog.)
Related Posts (on one page):
- "Do the Parenting For Me" Quote of the Day
- The School as Breathalyzer
- I Know What You Smoked Last Summer
- No Drug Test Left Behind
Posted by Kip on
26 May 2007
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