What are drug tests at Georgia schools really costing you?

By Ben Baker
drug testsAccording to a Drugs Don’t Work program coordinator who spoke at a Chamber of Commerce meeting a while back the two Georgia teachers’ unions, the Professional Association of Georgia Educators (PAGE) and the Georgia  Association of Educators, may cost tax payers millions of dollars each year because the unions blocked an effort to have teachers tested for drug use.
Why does it cost taxpayers millions each year?
Because Georgia has a program called Drugs Don’t Work. Any business which signs up for this program saves an automatic 7.5 percent on workman’s comp insurance premiums. By signing up for Drugs Don’t Work, a business agrees to randomly test employees for drug use, offer counseling help for those with problems and a few other items which work to reduce drug and alcohol use in the workplace.
The folks behind this are not blowing smoke either. It really works. Studies of companies which have gone to Drugs Don’t Work are showing increases in worker productivity, decreases in accidents and lost work time. So, in addition to saving money on workman’s comp, companies are seeing a brighter bottom line.
Teachers unions stood up in Atlanta and pointedly refused to let teachers be tested for drugs, blocking school systems from participating in Drugs Don’t Work.
So why do the teachers’ unions not want Georgia teachers to be tested for drugs?
The reasons vary depending who you ask and simply don’t add up. Privacy concerns. Workplace ethics. The cost of the testing (which is less than what would be saved by joining Drugs Don’t Work). Claiming it’s another “unfunded mandate.” A concern that it could lead to student drug testing of students involved in sports. And other reasons which all have about the same amount of logic and validity.
There’s a term in the student testing statement which which bears brief examination. In Georgia where High School Football is undisputed king of Friday night, drug-testing the star running back is far more of a concern than drug-testing the assistant coach. I don’t know the exact numbers of star football players who’d get booted off the team with a mandatory drug testing program, but I suspect we’d see a sharp reduction in the lineup. I’m not picking on football. I’d expect the same rate of students being yanked off other sports programs. Not picking on sports either, go down the line for all after-school activities in which one school competes against or meets with one or more schools. That’s Band, JROTC, Scientific teams like the Electric Vehicle competition, FCCLA, FHA, 4-H (which is a quasi-school function), Chess and so forth. Maybe not Chess. But I can’t say for sure either.
Student testing would also be much more expensive than testing teachers. Students, after all, outnumber teachers about 20:1 or more. Besides which, there’s a second issue with students. Outrage would explode across high school campuses as irate parents accuse school systems of faking, misinterpreting and mixing-up drug tests results. I can hear it now – “My child simply does not use drugs. Your test is mistaken.” Besides, drug testing wouldn’t work – how many students actually ride the bench these days because their grades aren’t up to par? But that’s a different subject.
For years now, I’ve covered local school systems in Georgia. For years, I’ve covered local law enforcement in Georgia. Where the two meet, I’ve been standing to the side with camera and notepad. I’ve seen the drug sweeps in high schools. I’ve walked beside the canine units (drug sniffing dogs) in the parking lots. I’ve seen the dogs indicate drugs in the same teachers’ vehicles year in year out. A law enforcement check of the vehicle turns up nothing concrete, but the dogs don’t lie. Even the school administrators roll their eyes when the dogs approach certain teachers’ vehicles. The admin knows what’s going to happen.
The real reason the teachers unions oppose the testing is another reason the unions don’t want you to know.
PAGE and GAE protect bad teachers. PAGE and GAE expend serious money and effort every year to keep incompetent teachers in the classroom. That statement, no doubt, is going to infuriate both unions, but it is true. I estimate about 20 to 25 percent of Georgia’s teachers are functionally illiterate. Sure, they can read and write, but they can’t do either well enough to adequately get a point across to students. I know this for a fact because as editor of a community newspaper, I have to edit the literary landfills they pass to the newspaper for publication. After more than 20 years of worksmithing, I can tell the difference between honest mistakes and someone who doesn’t know how to write properly.
The unions won’t admit to intentionally protecting the bad teachers. But the same blanket of protection thrown over the good teachers covers the bad teachers. PAGE and GAE won’t honestly own up to the faults inherent in such blanket policies, nor will they give serious effort to correcting these deficiencies. Both unions block reform efforts and the General Assembly listens to them each winter at the Capitol. At the national level, it’s this kind of union attitude which led to the No Child Left Behind federal legislation (which is almost as bad as the unions).
Once you wade past the unions’ hype and the hyperbolic venting, you’re going to be left with a painful reality.
The teachers unions work against teachers being accountable.
In a sense, the unions have to do that. Teachers today are faced with classroom education issues that were unthinkable 20 years ago. Classroom shootings, drugs, parents who side with their children no matter what the evidence shows. My own brother, a high school English teacher, witnessed a student masturbate in class one day. Incredible but true. Teachers today have to be momma, daddy, pastor, psychiatrist, judge, jury & jailer as well as instructor. It’s a herculean task very few teachers are up to.
But, the unions also won’t seriously work to bring about the real reforms needed to put teachers in control of the classroom. Instead, the unions increase lobbying efforts toward more teacher job protection, pay and benefits. The General Assembly reports and union assessments of the legislators bear me out.
Our students lack books, paper, supplies, computers and other learning materials, yet we have football coaches making more than $65,000 a year. We have administrators who push paper making close to $100,000 a year and that is not the system superintendent.
Before you decide to come find me and turn me in to a human landfill, let me point out the real problem.
I am most emphatically not saying the problem with Georgia’s schools are the teachers (the problem with Georgia’s schools in order are: the parents, the students, politicians, lawyers, administrations and then teachers). I am most emphatically saying our best and brightest teachers are being driven out of teaching and those coming up to replace them are often quickly disillusioned and quit. The demand for teachers in Georgia’s schools supports that statement. The teachers who stay, or more accurately, are left behind are increasingly marginal teachers. The hackneyed phrase “Those who can do; those who can’t, teach” is becoming ever more true in Georgia’s public schools.
Lest I leave our good teachers feeling they are insulted, that is not my intent. Georgia is blessed with some awesome educators. These men and women have my highest respect. I sincerely wish them well. They have my support. I wish they had the real support of the teachers’ unions.
This hemorrhaging of our best teachers could stop, if our teachers were allowed to teach. That means giving them the support they need. That means putting emphasis on accountability and then LETTING THEM TEACH. If the two unions will get serious about accountability in teachers, the unions will have my support. I just don’t see that happening.