"What we do in the name of health, safety, and well-being are linked with teaching and learning. Teaching and learning can't take place if students aren't healthy, aren't physically and mentally fit, or aren't safe."

William Modzeleski, Director, Safe and Drug-Free School Program, U.S. Department of Education

Despite evidence that the health needs of students are both increasing and becoming more complex, prevention programs are not yet firmly rooted in public school systems. The nation's public schools are under enormous pressure to improve the academic skills of students, especially in the core areas of language and mathematics. This pressure has resulted in the fairly widespread attitude among school officials that prevention programs are not critical, and consume valuable time that could otherwise be devoted to academic instruction. In addition, as school administrators respond to severe budgetary constraints, prevention programs are often cancelled or assigned to part-time or less well-trained teachers.¹

As an MSC, one of your primary responsibilities will be to "make the case" -- to administrators, teachers, parents, and community members -- that safe and drug-free schools will enhance effective learning and teaching. You must identify concrete ways that prevention programming will provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. By highlighting the intrinsic connections between healthy behavior and academic achievement, you will be better able to garner the programmatic support you need to implement and sustain your prevention programs.

Academic Indicators

Middle school coordinators are used to evaluating the effects of prevention interventions on health behaviors, such as smoking or alcohol use. However, to evaluate the impact of school prevention programs on academic success, you also need to look at indicators of academic performance.

Academic performance may be measured in a number of ways. Here are two possibilities:

1. Educational outcomes: These may be short term, such as grades or performance on standardized achievement tests, or longer term, such as graduation rates.

2. Education behaviors: These include student attendance rates, behavioral problems (or disciplinary actions) at school, and suspensions. These behaviors are significant early indicators of academic performance as they represent "lost days of learning."

   Schools traditionally collect data on these educational outcomes and behaviors, but these data have rarely been examined for a relationship to student health behaviors or the impact of prevention programs.

Why it is Difficult to Establish a Link between Prevention and Academic Achievement

Prevention programs rarely influence student learning directly. Instead, most school-based prevention programs influence academic performance through an indirect, multistage process. Consider, for example, the potential impact of a smoking prevention program. If implemented effectively, this program could directly effect:

1. student health behaviors, by decreasing tobacco use among students;

2. student attitudes, by affecting smoking norms; and

3. characteristics of the school environment, by motivating administrators to develop a "smoke free" zone around the school.

But that's not all! If the effects of the intervention are strong enough, they could also affect student health outcomes by decreasing students' addiction to nicotine. Students who are no longer addicted are better able to concentrate in class (an improved education, or school behavior). Improved concentration could ultimately lead to improved student education outcomes, such as better grades and (eventually) higher standardized test scores. Throughout this process, student, family, and peer characteristics, as well as the school/community environment, would also play an important role in shaping the pattern and magnitude of any impact.

The scenario described above presents one model for understanding the relationship between prevention and achievement. (To see a graphic representation of the model, click here.) A key feature of the model is the distance between the prevention intervention and education outcomes. This distance makes it difficult for many prevention interventions to produce education effects. It can also make it difficult for evaluations to detect these effects when and if they occur. It is especially difficult for prevention interventions that are limited in either scope or duration to produce detectable changes in educational outcomes. In these cases -- which appear to constitute a majority of school-based prevention interventions, the effects tend to be small and difficult to identify or differentiate from all of the other influences on school performance. Even for programs with a substantial impact, evaluations may need a large sample and rigorous design in order to detect any impact on school performance.²

The model also highlights the potential effects of school and community environment on both health and educational outcomes. This underscores the importance of developing a schoolwide, systematic approach to prevention that is embedded within a supportive learning community.³ According to Sheppard G. Kellam, M.D., Senior Research Scientist at the American Institutes for Research, "Progress will be far more likely if we seamlessly integrate prevention programs with the teaching mission [of our schools] in a way that does not compete for time, but rather enhances the overall goal of education and development." ⁴

What the Latest Research Shows

To become stronger advocates for prevention in the context of education reform, MSCs need to be familiar with the research that supports the links between substance use and violence prevention and academic success. We have included two summaries of current research linking academic success to substance use and violence prevention. (Click here for findings from a literature review conducted by the Massachusetts Department of Education, and click here for findings identified by the National Training Center.) As you review these findings, identify some examples you might use to demonstrate the link between prevention and academic success in your school.

What an Expert Says About These Links

Denise Gottfredson, professor at the University of Maryland Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, studies delinquency prevention and the effects of school environments on youth behavior. She has recently developed several summaries of the literature on school-based prevention, including a report to the U.S. Congress on effective practices in school-based crime prevention and several subsequent articles and chapters that have re-evaluated this literature using meta-analysis. Her recent book, Schools and Delinquency, is the most comprehensive of these summaries.

Interview Questions

1. What are the strongest links you've seen between violence and substance abuse prevention and academic success?

   We recently completed a study that looked at features of effective school-based prevention of crime, substance use, drop-out/non-attendance, and other conduct problems. The study used a technique called meta-analysis to compare the results of 165 studies of school-based prevention activities ranging from individual counseling or behavior modification programs through efforts to change the way schools are managed. It showed that school-based prevention practices can be effective for reducing alcohol and drug use, drop-out and non-attendance, and other conduct problems.

2. Are there certain types of prevention programs that seem to be more closely tied to academic success than others?

   The study described above showed that programs which focus on social and emotional learning improve outcomes that are directly related to the schools' mission: drop-out and non-attendance. The program effects on these outcomes were roughly three times greater than for delinquency and alcohol and drug use.

3. Did you find that all populations benefited equally from these interventions?

   No. In fact, programs that targeted more at-risk populations had larger observed effects. One explanation for this could be that the "general" population is starting out with less problem behavior, causing an artificial "upper bound" on the possible effects that could be observed. Yet, given that a relatively small proportion of the population is responsible for a large proportion of crime, it appears that prevention strategies can be particularly effective with these higher risk populations.

4. Did your study reveal any prevention strategies that simply didn't work?

   At this point it would be premature to say because so much more research needs to be done. What I can say, however, is that the "how" seems to be more important than the "what." For example, instructional prevention programs that are based on sound learning principles, such as establishing behavioral goals and using feedback or reinforcement to change behavior, seem to be more effective at preventing crime, substance use, and other disruptive school-related behaviors than those that do not. This suggests that many existing curricula might be improved by incorporating new teaching techniques rather than replacing them.

   It is also apparent that no single school-based strategy, implemented in isolation, can have a large effect. Schools seem to operate under this assumption already because they offer many different types of prevention programs simultaneously. This suggests that at least as important as the question "Which program works?" are questions such as "Which combinations or sequences of strategies work best?" and "How can schools effectively design comprehensive packages of prevention strategies and implement them in a high quality fashion?"

   Our advice to schools is that they combine, in a way that makes good sense locally, several of the strategies shown to be most effective for reducing problem behavior. These mixes should combine the most effective of the instructional strategies with broader changes to the school environment that signal and reinforce appropriate behavior.

To read the report described above, see: Wilson, D. B., Gottfredson, D. C., & Najaka, S. S. (2001). School-based prevention of problem behaviors: A meta-analysis. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 17(3), 247 - 272.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Please think about these questions and post your answers, comments, or questions to the Discussion Area.

1. What examples from the research presented might you use to demonstrate the link between prevention and academic success?

2. How have you made the link between prevention and academic success in your school?

Footnotes

¹ Adapted from Devaney, B., et al. (1993). Evaluating the effects of school health interventions on school performance: Design report. Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., p. 1.

² Adapted from Devaney, B., et al. (1993). Evaluating the effects of school health interventions on school performance: Design report. Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., p. 8-9.

³ Learning First Alliance. (2001). Every Child Learning: Safe and Supportive Schools. Baltimore, MD: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at http://www.learningfirst.org.

⁴ Kellam, S.G. (August 6, 2001). The seamless integration of evidence-based education and prevention in schools. Presentation at the National Technical Assistance Meeting of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program, United States Department of Education, Washington, DC.