Drug abuse prevention curricula in public and private schools in Indiana

Abstract

Recent research on drug education has focused on public schools. This study compares public school drug education programs with such efforts in private schools in one midwestern state. All schools in the state were asked to respond to a survey on curricula and training. This study reports on the types of prevention curricula used and at what grades, as well as the number of schools with trained staff. For almost every grade a higher percentage of public schools was found to be implementing drug education programs than private schools. This was manifested in public schools developing their own programs and/or purchasing commercially available drug curricula. Although an equal number of private and public schools have trained staff, less than half of all schools report a trained staff at each grade level. Directions for future research based on these results are suggested.