Public concern overschool safety has increased over recent decades due to fatal shootings and other violent acts. The Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools is an office of the Department of Education created to address school safety concerns that face students. The Office administers drug and violence prevention programs for students in elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education, and related programs that promote the health and well being of students. The budget had been cut drastically in recent years. State grants dropped from $344 million in 2007 to $100 million for 2009. Cuts include Alcohol Abuse Reduction, Mentoring programs, Character Education, School Counseling, Physical and Civic Education.
The OSDFS was developed as the successor program to the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities (SDFSC) program, first authorized by Congress in 1986 as a response to alarmingly high rates of alcohol and other drug use among children and youth. On January 8, 2002, the President signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSC), as Title IV, Part A of the NCLB, became effective on July 1, 2002. OSDFS was developed in September of 2002 to bring together into a single unit a number of programs that were previously scattered among several different federal department offices.
The OSDFS distributes discretionary grants to organizations and programs that are formed to promote health and prevent violence. It works on the levels of primary, secondary and higher education institutions. See programs below for examples.
The OSDFS is working toward the President's National Drug Control Strategy goals, which call for significant reductions over the next 3 years in the use of illegal drugs by adolescents. This office is also responsible for distributing information from the Center for Disease Control, in areas that may affect school children, as well as reports such as how to identify and help victims of human trafficking. It administers conferences on school safety, health and emergency preparedness.
Health, Mental Health, Environmental Health, and Physical Education
Drug Violence Prevention – State Programs
Drug Violence Prevention – National Programs
Character and Civic Education: Administers programs in character and civics education, including providing financial assistance for character and citizenship education activities. Margaret Spellings defines character as positive, responsible and respectful, and finds this type of education just as important as reading, math, and science. The following programs have come out of this group: Partnerships in Character Education Program, Cooperative Civic Education and Economic Education Exchange Program, and We The People. The grants involved are supposed to go to character education programs that teach students core ethical concepts, defined as: civics; citizenship; justice; responsibility; and respect for oneself and others. The goal in this character and civic education here is to reduce discipline problems and improve academic achievement.
Policy and Cross Cutting Programs
Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Advisory Committee: This committee was authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act and its members are appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education. The Committee was established to provide advice to the Secretary on Federal, state, and local programs designated to create safe and drug-free schools, and on issues related to crisis planning. The Advisory Committee is made up of representatives from Federal Agencies and private citizens who have high levels of expertise and experience in the areas of drug, alcohol and violence prevention; safe schools; mental health research and crisis planning.
Also see:
The money is given out as discretionary grants to national, state or local organizations in order to carry out specific programs, such as the following:
Propoganda
Roderick R. Paige, who was appointed the first under secretary of OSDFS, was found to have provided payments to a conservative black commentator, Armstrong Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind law. Paige defended these payments as a standard "outreach effort" to minority groups who stand to benefit most from the Bush administration's showcase education program. The Education Department's inspector general criticized the contract, under which Armstrong Williams also agreed "to regularly comment on" and promote the law during his syndicated TV show. Williams has long contended that he did nothing illegal. "There's nothing to hide," he said. The $240,000 deal (taxpayer dollars), he said, paid him only to produce the ads. His company ultimately produced one radio ad and one TV ad before the contract was suspended.
Deceitful Name
Compliance with the federal Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools is part of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Some would claim that the name "No Child Left Behind Act" is in and of itself a form of propaganda. The United States government used NCLB to personalize the originally named "Elementary and Secondary Schools Act." The NCLB Act included a mandate for public schools across the country to contribute their students' personal information to a military database.
Misallocation of Funding
In 2000, The Brookings Institution, an independent research group, criticized the OSDFS of being ineffective in making schools neither safer nor more drug-free. From 1986 to 2000, OSDFS provided an estimated $2 billion in funding to approximately 15,000 schools and fifty state governors to spend primarily at their own discretion. OSDFS funding has reportedly been spent on fishing trips, school concerts and performing magicians. Funding has also gone to funding various research methods in counseling that have proven ineffective.
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Founded: 2002
Annual Budget: $693,404,000 (2008)
Employees:
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Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools
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Price, Deborah
Previous Assistant Deputy Secretary
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On Feb. 2, 2004, Deborah A. Price was appointed assistant deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. She also leads the Department's homeland security efforts, in terms of developing quality terrorism preparedness plans for schools.
Price grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, after which she went on to gain a theology degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Upon graduation, Price worked for Senator William L. Armstrong, (R-Colorado), and directed the 1985 National Prayer Breakfast, a religious political organization (President George W. Bush has given regular speeches to the group). Price soon after became the director of research and administration for the Senate Republican Policy Committee under Senator Don Nickles (R-Oklahoma). She then became a policy adviser to Senator Nickles, who was assistant majority leader at the time. Upon joining the Department of Education Price served as chief of staff of the Office of Federal Student Aid , and then began her work at the OSDFS.
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