Dope da' kids.

[Joe Wordsworth]

As part of the giant omnibus spending bill recently passed by the House
and the Senate, a few serious provisions not getting any media coverage
are the bits concerning education and mental health. According to this
provision all children attending public school will now be required to
undergo mental health screening. If children are found to have any
mental health deficiencies they will be required to take drugs to
correct their problems. The bill does not mention anything about
parental consent, what constitutes a mental deficiency, who will be
paying for the screenings and drugs, who will do the screening, and
what will happen to those that refuse to take their medicine. It is a
larger scale of the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) that
began in Texas in 1995.

The one lone congressman that has raised any fuss is Republican
Representative Ron Paul of Texas, he offered that the "Let Parent's
Raise Their Kids Act" be added, since the bill neglects to mention
parental consent. As a doctor Rep. Paul is concerned with children
being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs b/c they are known to cause
developmental problems, unfortunately he was voted down in the House by
over 200 votes.

As the mother of two small children, I am disgusted that so many of the
men and women in Congress don't seem to think that my children's mental
well being is my responsibility. I am also disgusted that this
initiative has gotten little, if any, coverage in the main stream
media, as a parent I sure would have liked to know about it before they
voted.


...one lone Texas Republican against a madhouse.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

An interesting article Joe. I haven't heard anything about this before. I'll have to do a little digging.

As the father of 2 daughters, it disturbs me more than a little bit that the federal gov. is deciding who must take mind altering drugs.

 

[Honey123]

I am with CD...this is disturbing, but there is also a law which states that school nurses cannot medicate children and children are not allow to take medication with them to school...I am not quite sure of the way it is stated, but I do remember a big fuss when a child died of a bee sting. He/she was allergic and had the medication if stung. The school nurse by law was unable to medicate the child and the child died.

This is interesting.

 

[R. Richard]

OK, back when I went to school. Thus I have some experience in the area.

I share the concern that school children may be forced to take drugs without parental consent. My real concern is that the drugs are also not being forced on the teachers. Most of the teachers I had were either insane or so incompetent that it was not possible to determine if they were insane or just monumentally incompetent.

In the schools I attended (inner city ghetto schools) the police had the problem of children dealing drugs under some sort of minimal control. The problem of teachers dealing drugs was so far out of control that the kids could not compete. The teachers had better stuff at lower prices.

JMNTHO.

 

[BlackShanglan]

On the other hand, where my mother teaches (which shall remain nameless), they have to devote an entire period of the resource teacher's time to dealing with medication issues. They have a number of children who are on various sorts of medication to control behavior. Unfortunately, many of them are also on the "free breakfast" program as well as on medication that must be taken with food. The result is that they don't take the medication until they are at school, after which point it can take half an hour to kick in. After having classes repeatedly disrupted during this time, the school has taken to housing the children in the resource room until the medication kicks in and they are ready to participate in class.

Net problem? Parents who can't be bothered to give their childen a slice of bread and a scraping of peanut butter before sending them off to school. Net result? Child misses a full period of instruction every day; students who might have benefitted from the resource room can't use it in the morning, as it is full of wired kids waiting for the meds to kick in.

I take no stance on whether all of these children even ought to be on medication, or whether their problems might be better solved through more intensive application of "parenting skills." My point is that while most of us would like the government to assume that we do have the skills and interest to parent our children, evidence from the school systems would seem to suggest that many of us don't.

I can't at heart support the sort of fascist state that requires people to have a license in order to reproduce, but at times it is tempting.

Shanglan

 

[Lisa Denton]

My uninformed opinion of this came from a mother who supports it. The idea is a good one, meant to help kids whose parents say
"there ain't nothing wrong with my kid" when a doctor prescribes or suggests behavioral medication. It is not meant to be enforced but meant as a tool if say a teacher believed that child was disrupting the entire class, or fighting other children, so CPS could demand that the child be examined by a state doctor for the childs safety and well-being, along with the other children around him/her.

Then it would simply be added to the files that the parents refused more than one doctors recommendation that the child be medicated. With CPS this is just going to help them if other things come up. Without blantant abuse or neglect CPS cannot prove whether a parents wishes may or may not be best.

I would assume the schools could use the CPS reports to try to have the child placed in a class more able to deal with the disruptive behavior and protect the other children.

Anything can get out of hand and be used by an oppressive state or federal government to tell us how they think we should run our lives and raise our children and should be watched closely.

Keep in mind this is Texas where people don't take no shit from the government, especially concerning how to raise their children.

Like I said this is what I have heard, not what I have researched and I don't stand by this lady's facts, but I totally agreed with her support of it if her facts are correct.

 

[alyxen]

Not done searching, but this might be the bill in question:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:4:./temp/~c108ibfcFr::

This bill was actually to do 10 grants to study the effects, and is from September of 2003, so I'll keep looking for a more recent addition.

edit to add a link to the Let parents raise their kids act

 

[cantdog]

Remember Brave New World??

Take your drugs, they're watching. It's for your own good.

 

[TheEarl]

As part of the giant omnibus spending bill recently passed by the House
and the Senate, a few serious provisions not getting any media coverage
are the bits concerning education and mental health. According to this
provision all children attending public school will now be required to
undergo mental health screening. If children are found to have any
mental health deficiencies they will be required to take drugs to
correct their problems. The bill does not mention anything about
parental consent, what constitutes a mental deficiency, who will be
paying for the screenings and drugs, who will do the screening, and
what will happen to those that refuse to take their medicine. It is a
larger scale of the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) that
began in Texas in 1995.

The one lone congressman that has raised any fuss is Republican
Representative Ron Paul of Texas, he offered that the "Let Parent's
Raise Their Kids Act" be added, since the bill neglects to mention
parental consent. As a doctor Rep. Paul is concerned with children
being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs b/c they are known to cause
developmental problems, unfortunately he was voted down in the House by
over 200 votes.

As the mother of two small children, I am disgusted that so many of the
men and women in Congress don't seem to think that my children's mental
well being is my responsibility. I am also disgusted that this
initiative has gotten little, if any, coverage in the main stream
media, as a parent I sure would have liked to know about it before they
voted.


...one lone Texas Republican against a madhouse.

My God. Please tell me that's an article from The Onion.

Je-sus.

The Earl

 

[Liar]

Ok, that's creepy. I mean, not the mental health check. Kids have issues, and needs to be kept an eye on for their own good. know I would had been better off with a mandatory sanity check.

But the drugging bit. Um...eh? Is that really in the actual bill? Or is that an intepretation by the article author?

How about the legislation branch? Can't we enforce the same mental health check on politicians?

#L

 

[sweetnpetite]

Oh- H-ell NO! This is just fucked up beyond words.

btw, I also do not agree with teachers being able to threaten parents with CPS for not puting there kids on these medications. You shouldn't have to prove to CPS or the school that your decision not to medicate is warrented. (And also, once CPS is involved, I garantee you will have a scary uphill fight were you will soon realize that you have zero parental authority whatsoever)

This does not seem in the slightest bit constitiutional.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Is this a state law? A fedral law or PLEase please please- just a sick joke?

BTW- two words: home school.


I am all for medication when it's necessary but this is just scary.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Agreed, it's scary. Then again, it's also scary to be working in a school district where the police will no longer respond to child-on-child OR child-on-teacher assaults at school - too common, "waste of police time" - and where it's not uncommon to see, for example, an eight year old grab another by the hair, drag her off of her chair, and kick her on the floor.

My mother is, without meaning any slight to her, getting too old to be asked to deal with a situation like that. And the younger ones are equally frightened of lawsuits for assault or accusations of sexual misconduct should they have to physically restrain a child. I would hasten to add that she's not teaching in any of the schools or cities that are likely to spring immediately to mind. It's not an inner-city urban school, and it's not in an area known for high crime or poverty.

I think, on the whole, that very few of us realize just how violent and how uncontrolled some very young children are becoming. I don't think that medication is always the answer to this, but I also question whether it is reasonable to expect that teachers risk their safety to deal with these children, or to believe that any learning is occurring in such classrooms.

Whether we like it or not, I would argue that there is an inherent difficulty in insisting that we both let people raise their children in any way they like whatsoever, and that the public schools educate all children thoroughly and effectively in a safe environment on the funding currently available.

Shanglan

 

[cantdog]

As usual, it's a much more complex problem than it appears.

 

[Lisa Denton]

Is this a state law? A fedral law or PLEase please please- just a sick joke?

BTW- two words: home school.


I am all for medication when it's necessary but this is just scary.

From the links posted hon, it just looks like all they have agreed on so far it to study the idea with some childrens parental consent only, and they are mostly concerned with suicidal tendencies. Its state, and nobody fucks with peoples kids in Texas so I doubt they will do anything except spend a bunch of money and then blow it off.

 

[Lisa Denton]

Agreed, it's scary. Then again, it's also scary to be working in a school district where the police will no longer respond to child-on-child OR child-on-teacher assaults at school - too common, "waste of police time" - and where it's not uncommon to see, for example, an eight year old grab another by the hair, drag her off of her chair, and kick her on the floor.

My mother is, without meaning any slight to her, getting too old to be asked to deal with a situation like that. And the younger ones are equally frightened of lawsuits for assault or accusations of sexual misconduct should they have to physically restrain a child. I would hasten to add that she's not teaching in any of the schools or cities that are likely to spring immediately to mind. It's not an inner-city urban school, and it's not in an area known for high crime or poverty.

I think, on the whole, that very few of us realize just how violent and how uncontrolled some very young children are becoming. I don't think that medication is always the answer to this, but I also question whether it is reasonable to expect that teachers risk their safety to deal with these children, or to believe that any learning is occurring in such classrooms.

Whether we like it or not, I would argue that there is an inherent difficulty in insisting that we both let people raise their children in any way they like whatsoever, and that the public schools educate all children thoroughly and effectively in a safe environment on the funding currently available.

Shanglan

I agree that the parents who think the schools should teach their kids right from wrong, and the schools being forced to leave no child behind, and never touch a child, and never teach a child what the parents failed to teach them, right from wrong. Add in the police fear of getting involved in a "child problem" whether violent or not is just waiting for some very young children to be hurt by other very young children.