Safe and Drug Free Schools

Principles of Effectiveness

The President's fiscal year 1998 budget included appropriations language that would improve the accountability of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities (SDFSC) program by requiring recipients of SDFSC State grants to use these funds for prevention strategies that meet principles of effectiveness to be published by the Secretary of Education. These principles, which would be published in the Federal Register for public comment, would be along the following lines:

• Local SDFSC prevention programs shall base their programs on an assessment of objective data about the drug and violence problems in the schools and community served.

• Local SDFSC prevention program shall design their activities to meet their measurable goals and objectives for drug and violence prevention.

• Local SDFSC prevention programs shall base the design and implementation of their activities on research or evaluation that provides evidence that the strategies used prevent or reduce drug use, violence, or disruptive behavior among youth.

• SDFSC prevention programs may use prevention approaches that have not yet been proved effective if the programs are part of an evaluation-based demonstration designed to validate the effectiveness of the approach.

• Local SDFSC prevention programs shall evaluate their programs periodically to assess their progress toward achieving their goals and objectives.

• Local SDFSC prevention programs shall use their evaluation results to correct approaches that are not working, to strengthen approaches that are working, and to refine the goals and objectives.

• Unless part of a larger, comprehensive program, SDFSC funds may not be used for one-time events of short duration, approaches that provide only information about the characteristics and effects of drugs, or self-esteem building activities.

The above principles are grounded in current research and designed to ensure that, within the very flexible framework of the SDFSC Act, States and school districts spend their SDFSC Funds in the most effective manner possible. The authorizing statute currently is so flexible, that recipients of these funds may be using them to support activities that are the most popular or the easiest to implement, but not necessarily the most effective at reducing drug use and violence among youth. The new principles of effectiveness are intended to preserve State and local flexibility but ensure that program funds are used in a manner most likely to result in positive outcomes.