ONDCP has posted a new booklet on student-drug testing. "What You Need to Know About Starting a Student Drug Testing Program" is a pretty straightforward guide to implementing testing in schools. It's the kind of document that, if you read it, will only reinforce your existing ideas on drug testing. Against it? Read this and you'll still be an opponent. For it? Nothing to dissuade you here. On second thought, maybe there's something -- if you're open to a little critical analysis -- to make you change your mind.

Assessing your program's effectiveness

One important measure of success for a student drug-testing program is whether drug use at your school declines over time. Launching the program is only part of the process. It is essential that you also monitor the program closely and regularly by conducting surveys, watching for signs of progress...

So less drug use is the essential measure of progress, huh? And the program should be closely monitored? Fine by me. But who should do the assessing? According to ONDCP, "outside agencies" are one option:

[Q]uantitative data -- including the results of student surveys compared to your baseline data and the percentage of positive test results found each year during the course of your program -- will allow you to more definitively gauge your program's success. In some cases, schools have hired outside evaluators to review the progress of their programs.

Well slap my ass and call me Shirley! Could ONDCP be any more hypocritical? They've already been shown on numerous occasions to have failed and/or evaded their own measuring tools. For instance:

Drug Czar Cancels Misleading "Drugs & Terrorism" Ad Campaign: ONDCP Also to Stop Annual Evaluation that has Shown Anti-Drug Ads to be Ineffective

"Fuzzy Math" in New ONDCP Report

Facts on the Drug Czar's Accounting Fraud

Testing the Wrong Policy on Students

Read the offending text at the ONDCP website here, and get the whole report here.