Re Examine Your Numbers

Here’s another lesson to journalists and bloggers: If you’re going to write a fear mongering article about how out of control drugs have become in our schools, it’s best not to back up your data with quotes like this one about schools implementing drug searches on students:

“99-percent is all for it,” White said citing the survey. “One percent said ‘no.’ And that one percent put on their paper: I use drugs that’s why I wouldn’t want it in the school.”

Ignoring the grammatical mistakes (which isn’t easy), the facts of this quote simply don’t support your article. If most teens are using drugs, then why do 99% support drug searching in school? It would seem to me, that according to the student petition, only 1% of the students are using drugs. That’s not really a problem. In fact, it’s a sharp decrease in drug use.

I’m not saying that drug use isn’t a problem in schools - it probably is. I’m just saying make sure that your numbers make sense before over-reacting to everything.

October 10th, 2006