Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 2 December 1999 — Page 32

The Muncie Times, December 2, 1999, page 32

FIGHTING DRUGS Governor uses $7.5 million in anti-drug effort

When police make arrests, they like to talk about the street value of the drugs they confiscate. This federal grant has a street value that goes beyond dollars. Its value will be measured in the lives of our state’s children. Frank O’Bannon governor

Armed with a $7.5 million federal grant, Gov. Frank O’Bannon launched a new effort to steer young Hoosiers away from drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. He named a geographically diverse, 33-member committee to help decide how best to spend the money. The panel includes students in middle school, high school and college as well as adult community representatives and prevention specialists. “When police make arrests, they like to talk about the street value of the drugs they confiscate,” O’Bannon said. “This federal grant has a street value that goes beyond dollars. Its value will be measured in the lives of our state’s children. “But it doesn’t come without strings. This money can’t be used for gimmicks; it can be spent only on programs that have been proven to reduce drug use.” To help decide which community programs should be funded, O’Bannon has created the Governor’s Advisory Panel on Drug Abuse Prevention. The panel will work under the supervision of the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA), which wall oversee local programs and make

the final funding decisions. “The grant requires a panel like this. The point is to make sure we meet the needs of all of Indiana’s youth,” the governor said. “A program that appeals to teens in one of our large cities, for instance, might not be as effective in a small town. “That’s why we need such a large panel of people of different ages, professions and locations. And we added six young Hoosiers to the group to give us an even better chance of reaching our youth.” “Drug use is very serious,” said Shelbyville 8th grader Stephanie Peohner, an alternate member of the new panel. “Even people you think are your friends will try to get you to use drugs. And even though everyone knows it’s wrong, some people do it anyway. And then it ruins their life.”

Panelist George Ferguson Jr., a 12th grader in Newburgh, said he hopes that youth input wall help the state spend the money effectively. “Drug use is an issue statewide and it’s certainly an issue at my school,” he said. “My friends and other students don’t take it seriously. We all need to take drug use more seriously and have action plans to study and address it.” “Many kids start smoking or drinking because a so-called friend pressures them into it,” said First Lady Judy O’Bannon, honorary chair of the panel. “The community programs we’ll be undertaking will target alcohol, tobacco and marijuana—the gateway drugs that so often lead the way to other drugs.” The grant is the largest competitive one for drug prevention Indiana has ever received. All 50

states and U.S. territories sought funding. Twenty-one won it. Under its terms, Indiana must designate 17 “grassroots coalitions” to carry out prevention programs at the local level. Only those programs considered “scientifically defensible” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Substance Abuse Prevention are eligible for funding. “In other words, before we fund any community drug prevention program, we have to show it has already been proven to reduce drug use, or that scientific analysis says it should work,” O’Bannon said. “We will blanket the state with programs that are specifically designed to meet the needs of those different communities.” Groups throughout Indiana will be asked to apply for funding from the advisory panel. The groups will then submit applications to the advisory panel, detailing how' the program can be used in their communities. The panel will then make funding recommendations to FSSA’s Division of Mental Health Contact for reporters: Phil Bremen or Cheryl Reed, 317-232-4578.

Governor, Superintendent send school standards home to parents

Parents should be sure to read a new booklet that their children will be bringing home from school in the next few weeks. Gov. Frank O’Bannon and Dr. Snellen Reed, Indiana’s superintendent of public instruction, said two million easy-to-read copies of the state’s academic standards for mathematics and language arts are on the way to parents and teachers. “Before we can improve Indiana’s academic standards, everyone involved has to be able to understand the standards we have,” O’Bannon said. “And for parents to play a more active role in their child’s education, they have to be able to understand what we expect of each child.” The state has put the current standards into simpler words and organized them in a format that’s easier to follow 7 , the governor said. That's also why the state is sending those standards, by grade level, to all public and accredited non-public schools for distribution to the

parents of Indiana’s 1 million school children and their teachers, Reed said. “By clearly spelling out what a student should know and be able to do at each grade, we have taken an important step in improving learning,” she said. Indiana has had academic standards in place for more than 7 years. Until now they were written not by grade, but by clusters of grades. In many cases, the standards were phrased in education jargon. “Getting rid of the jargon will give everyone a better idea of what we expect of our students. And it will let us take a sharper look at the content of our standards—to see how we might prepare our children better to live, work and compete in the 21st century,” O’Bannon said. “We also want to compare our expectations with the best in the world to see how we stack up.” To determine how Indiana’s expectations for students’ learning

measure up against expectations of other states and countries, the Indiana Department of Education is working with Achieve Inc. and the International Center for Leadership. Their reports evaluating the content of Indiana’s standards are due by the end of this year. “Technology, our economy and our world are changing fast. We need to make sure that Indiana schools and students keep pace,” said state Rep. Greg Porter, chair of the House Education Committee. “Benchmarking our standards will give us the information we need to develop the next generation of academic standards.” “We know that by setting specific goals, everyone wins. Teachers, students and communities know what’s expected. We want to make sure we are expecting enough,” said state Sen. Tom Weatherwax, chair of the Senate Education Committee. “Clarifying the standards, getting them in the hands of parents and comparing them to the best in the

world are all important steps to ensuring that Hoosier children get a world class education.” Weatherwax and Porter are members of the Education Roundtable, which supports these efforts to improve Indiana’s academic standards. O’Bannon and Reed brought the group of business, education and community leaders together last year to discuss critical issues in education and community leaders together last year to discuss critical issues in education. This year the General Assembly made the Education Roundtable a formal working group. Its responsibility is to make recommendations to the Indiana State Board of Education for improving Indiana’s standards and its assessment system, focusing on school accountability. You may read—and comment on—Indiana’s mathematics and language arts standards on-line at www.doe.state.in.us/standards