Family Fact: Private Schools

Family Quote: The Ed Secretary Speaks

Family Research Abstract: Parental Paralysis

According to the United States Census Bureau, 10.4 percent of children attending elementary and high schools in the United States were enrolled in private schools for the year 2000. 

(Source: United States Census Bureau, "GCT-P11. Language, School Enrollment, and Educational Attainment: 2000, Census 2000 Summary File 3 [SF 3]," http://factfinder.census.gov/bf/_lang=en_vt_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_GCTP11_US9_geo_id=01000US.html.) 

"But, you know, all things being equal, I would prefer to have a child in a school where there's a strong appreciation for values, the kind of values that I think are associated with the Christian communities, and so that this child can be brought up in an environment that teaches them to have strong faith and to understand that there is a force greater than them personally.

(Source: Rod Paige, U.S. Secretary of Education, in Todd Starnes, "Interview with the Secretary of Education," BPNews [Baptist Press], March 7, 2003; http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=15707.)  

In a newly published survey for The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, parents cite drugs and alcohol as their biggest concern for their teenagers: almost sixty percent (59%) of parents worry that their adolescent children will try illegal drugs.

Curiously, many parents feel as if they are powerless to do anything about that eventuality.  Despite the fact that years of research point to parents being the single most influential factor in preventing substance use and abuse, the authors of this study note that "[m]any parents seem to view teen drug use as a fait accompli.  This year's survey reveals widespread despair by parents of teenagers; many think parents have little power over their teens' substance use and a disturbing number view drugs in schools as a fact of life that they-and administrators-are powerless to stop." All in all, thirty-five percent of parents believe that they have little influence over their adolescent children's use of drugs, alcohol or tobacco.

"Parents are more likely than teens to predict future drug use by their teens.  Forty-three percent of parents-but just 16 percent of teens -say future drug use by the teen is 'likely'."  Not surprisingly, those parents who say their teen is "very likely" to use drugs have kids who are three times more likely to actually use drugs, smoke, or drink as opposed to parents who do not predict future drug use.

Forty-three percent of parents acknowledge that their children's' schools are not drug free, and "[n]ine of 10 parents who say their teens attend schools where drugs are used, kept, or sold think there are drugs in their teen's school despite the best efforts of the administration."  Incredibly, only half of these parents say that they would transfer their children to a drug-free school, and half of those who would not transfer their child maintain that a drug-free school does not exist.  Furthermore, 58 percent of parents say that they have never had the opportunity to express their opinion about drugs in their kids' schools.

The results are a series of perceived paradoxes:  Parents are worried about their kids using drugs, but feel powerless.  Parents feel powerless in the face of years of research to the contrary.  Parents often make predictions that become self-fulfilling regarding their teenagers' drug use.  The reality is much different than the perception, though: "Years of CASA research have repeatedly found that parents are the most important resource we have to prevent substance abuse in our teens.  In the 2000 survey, half of teens (49 percent) who had not tried marijuana credited their parents with their decision.  Expressing strong negative attitudes about marijuana to teens is important: teens who perceive marijuana as 'not harmful' are at more than two and a half times greater substance-abuse risk than teens who think marijuana is 'very harmful.'"

Like so many wars, it appears that the War on Drugs will be won or lost on the home front.