Progress in Prevention

Report on the National Study of Local Education Agency Activities under the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act Prepared by Irene Hantman and Scott Crosse, Westat, 1650 Research Boulevard, Rockville, Maryland 20850. 2000. Prepared for the U.S. Department of Education Office of the Under Secretary, Planning and Education Service. Doc #2002-003, 2000.

Executive Summary

The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) Program receives more funding and reaches more schools than any other school-based drug and violence prevention program nationally. Although local education agencies (school districts) are critical to the operation of this program, relatively little is known about how they plan, implement, and evaluate their SDFSCA-funded prevention activities. The U.S Department of Education (ED) initiated this study to provide a more complete description of the ways in which districts nationally accomplish such tasks; the study also is intended to provide a baseline for gauging progress on district implementation of new guidelines for the SDFSCA program, referred to as the "Principles of Effectiveness," which became effective in July 1998.

The report is based on a telephone survey of a national probability sample of school districts. The sample consisted of 600 districts that we selected after stratifying the pool of districts by district characteristics such as student enrollment and urbanicity. We collected information in a computer-assisted telephone interview with the staff person in each district who was most knowledgeable about the local SDFSCA program. Although the interviews occurred between December 1998 and April 1999, the reference period for the study was the 1997-98 school year. The survey collected information from 520 districts; with 23 districts ineligible for the survey, it achieved an overall response rate of 90 percent.

Many districts experienced problems developing measurable goals and objectives. In selecting prevention activities to meet their goals and objectives, the majority of districts considered information on the effectiveness of specific activities. However, the extent to which their understanding of program effectiveness corresponds with ED's nonregulatory guidance for implementing the Principles of Effectiveness, is questionable.

• Approximately half of districts adopted a measurable outcome objective. Fewer than half adopted a measurable process objective.

• In selecting prevention activities, 58 percent of districts considered research on the effectiveness of those activities. Only 35 percent of districts defined research-based prevention in a way that is as rigorous as the definition provided in ED's non-regulatory guidance.

• Forty-nine percent of districts reported that they needed more technical assistance on identifying program effectiveness research.

  The district staff who coordinate prevention activities often have many responsibilities. Those prevention activities typically target students directly rather than classroom or school environments. Only a small proportion of the prevention activities implemented are research-based.

• Approximately 70 percent of district SDFSCA coordinators spend no more than 20 percent of their time on prevention activities.

• Eighty-nine percent of districts implement prevention instruction. This type of activity and other activities that are geared to individual students are much more frequently used by districts than activities focusing on the classroom and school environment, such as reviewing and revising discipline practices.

• Although more than half of districts considered research on the effectiveness of activities when activities are selected, only 9 percent of districts are implementing research-based drug prevention activities. A larger proportion of districts use activities that include research-based elements. The findings are similar for violence prevention activities. The majority of districts receive funding for prevention activities from other sources in addition to the SDFSCA program. For many districts, the amount of funding per pupil from either SDFSCA or other sources is modest. Nonetheless, district prevention programming relies heavily on SDFSCA funding.

• Two-thirds of districts receive funding for prevention from sources other than SDFSCA. The most common sources are states, and school districts or local governments.

• Sixty percent of the districts without supplemental SDFSCA "greatest needs" funding (received by 9% of districts) receive under $6 per pupil in SDFSCA funding.

• Districts were most likely to allocate SDFSCA and non-SDFSCA prevention funds to the purchase of program materials and implementation.

• Forty-six percent of districts would likely lose their prevention programs without SDFSCA funding. More than three-fourths of districts would need to reduce their prevention activities to a great extent if they lost this funding.

  Districts typically collected information on problem behavior in schools and use the information in many ways. However, the quality of that information may limit its usefulness.

• Practically all districts require schools to report to them on serious incidents of problem behavior, such as student possession of weapons. Many districts place little emphasis on ensuring the quality of the incident information.

• Many districts also conducted surveys of students on drug use or victimization in schools; for example, 61 percent surveyed high school students. However, a sizeable proportion of these districts used unscientific methods to select students for the surveys, limiting the extent to which districts should generalize their survey results.

• Although we have concerns about how districts conduct student surveys and we do not know how systematically information is collected from other sources (e.g., school administrators, teachers, police, and community representatives), we are encouraged to see that districts realize the importance of using information on problem behavior in program planning. Eighty-nine percent of districts use evaluation information to adopt new prevention activities and 87 percent use the information to modify existing activities.

To access the full report (PDF), go to the US Department of Education at www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/other/progressinprevention.pdf.