The effectiveness of the well-known DARE drug-prevention program is getting a hard look by Hawai'i school officials, who are concerned it might not be the best tool to keep students drug-free.

The review is part of an analysis of all the drug education programs in place now in the state's public schools, with administrators looking for clear statistics on the effectiveness of each, with intent to revamp drug education offerings.

"DARE tends not to be as effective for drug prevention," assistant superintendent Kathy Kawaguchi told a Board of Education committee recently. "But it enables a child partnership with the police."

Kawaguchi is recommending that the federally recognized program LifeSkills Training be launched in the state's middle schools for grades 6, 7 and 8 because of the residual effects it has shown through high school in scientific studies for drug-abuse prevention.

"I've asked for an evaluation of all programs funded through the (federal Office of) Safe and Drug-Free Schools," Kawaguchi said. "I've also asked the staff to take a hard look at what are other options, especially those that have a strong scientific research base."

Nationally, DARE has been undergoing a radical renovation in the past four years, following concerns that the program failed to show measurable effectiveness as a drug prevention program in the schools.

The "New DARE," as it's being called, is in the final year of a five-year national study to evaluate the effectiveness of its revamped curriculum, which includes more bonding between students and the officer in the classroom so officers serve as "coaches" for the students, not lecturers, and give them opportunities to ask questions and role play at making decisions in real-life situations.

The DARE America Web site says New DARE's elementary school program is "being updated with the latest in prevention science."

A 2002 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office raised doubts about the long-term effectiveness of the DARE elementary school curriculum, finding "no significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received DARE in the fifth or sixth grade and students who did not," according to a June 2, 2005, story by the Boston Globe.

The report was based on six independent evaluations of three studies conducted in Colorado, Kentucky and Illinois schools during the 1980s and 1990s, the Globe said.

NEED FOR MORE

Hawai'i public schools are heavily committed to the DARE program, with the majority of elementary schools using it for instruction, predominantly in the fifth grade, but also in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

LifeSkills Training has been used in several schools and is being piloted this year at Jarrett Middle School.

Principal Gerald Teramae said that while DARE gives fifth-graders an initial overview, drug education should continue through the next three grades.

"What they cover is good — it's general information that the kids should know," Teramae said. "But there needs to be a consistent effort beyond this. The message regarding drugs, violence and gangs needs to be consistently relayed every year. You have to build on that knowledge and intensify the effort and the content about what is covered as the student goes through the grades and can understand the implications of this type of behavior."

Jessica Au, a junior at Kaiser High School, agrees, saying that while DARE exposed her to the concept of drugs, and the "just how to say no" message, she doesn't remember much else.

"It was just a program I had to listen to and do the homework. ... It's good there's something in elementary, but there's a need for something in middle school," Au said. "That's where the changes are happening. They're hitting puberty and being exposed to more."

Even high school underclassmen need additional drug education — plus treatment programs on campuses, she said.

For Jarrett sixth-grader Lee Fujino, 11, who took DARE last year, the program was impressive.

"I thought it was good because I know the drugs, if you take it, can make you die, and you get cancer and you can get a coma," he said.

Also important to young Fujino, however, is the constant anti-drug message from his parents.

"We've been doing that scare message from when the kids were 2," said his mother, Teresa. "We try to point out examples. When we see people freaking out we say, 'See, that's what happens when you use drugs.' "

POLICE-CHILD BOND

The DOE's Kawaguchi said she values the partnership educators have built with the Honolulu Police Department over many years with the DARE program, and does not want to see that lost. But in asking her staff to give her data on outcomes of each of the programs in place now, she wants to know what's working.

"You need to take a look at each program, and see what's special about it," Kawaguchi said. "I believe DARE is effective in creating positive relationships of students with police officers who they see as someone you can go to for help."

Katherine Sakuda, DOE administrator for health, PE, social studies and student programs, said that it's a challenge to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of any program.

"It's so difficult to measure what we call protective factors because we don't see the results until years later," she said. "The lasting effectiveness is inconclusive, that's why we need a few more years of study.

"But the federal DARE monitor did mention on his last visit that he was impressed with Hawai'i's coordinated effort toward prevention and education because of the partnerships — between the Department of Health, DOE, Department of Human Services and Police Department — which is becoming a model for other states."

More than 20 different programs are now being used in the schools, according to Yvette Achong, resource teacher for the DOE's Safe and Drug-Free Schools program. DARE is the most familiar, she said.

A DARE representative at the Honolulu Police Department said the program is operating in most of the state's 167 public elementary schools, including all O'ahu elementary schools, some middle and high schools, and some private and charter schools, or between 170 to 200 Hawai'i schools. There are 284 public schools in the state and 26 charter schools.

HARD EVIDENCE?

A 2004 survey of substance-abuse prevention education programs in Hawai'i schools by four University of Hawai'i graduate students and overseen by UH assistant sociology professor Katherine Irwin, with assistance from DOE, recommended that the DOE assess the effectiveness of drug education programs, something that had never been done.

And it recommended the DOE develop "measurement tools" to assess effectiveness.

The study pointed out that according to the Department of Health's 2002 Hawai'i Student Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use study, 10 percent of sixth-graders had used an illicit drug in their lifetimes, with the number rising steadily each two years until it stood at 49 percent for 12th graders.

"There's a big movement to replace programs that don't work with programs that do work," said Irwin, who teaches courses on drugs in society, juvenile delinquency and criminology at UH. "Right now, in the literature on prevention, there's a movement called 'best practices' or 'model programs' and these are programs that have been tested scientifically, the same way you'd test for a cancer drug, for instance."

Irwin said DARE is one program that hasn't performed as well as others listed as model programs.

"It's a popular program for drug education," she said, "but doesn't perform very well in research."

DARE is financed through federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education through the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities program. DOE pays only for training for police officers in classroom management and child development, as well as for training materials.

State funding is only used for the Lions-Quest Skills for Adolescence program, another drug education program in place in some schools, according to a DOE official.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.