Big decrease in teens who used commonly prescribed and misused prescription drugs

 

Since 2009, U.S. high school seniors have reported steep declines in medical use, misuse and availability of the three most commonly prescribed and misused controlled substances for teens, a new University of Michigan study found. 

 

Researchers compared use trends, sources and perceived availability of opioids, stimulants and benzodiazepines from 2009 to 2022. The research letter detailing the findings is scheduled to appear July 24 in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.  

 

"To put these findings in context, the reduction over the past decade was like going from 1 in every 9 high school students using prescription drugs nonmedically down to 1 in every 40 high school students," said Sean Esteban McCabe, U-M professor of nursing and director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health.  

 

"While this decrease is encouraging, we need to be vigilant because any amount of nonmedical use poses risks, especially with the danger posed by counterfeit pills."

 

Other findings from 2009 through 2022: 

• Lifetime medical use decreased from 24% to 16%. 
• Past-year misuse declined from 11% to 2%.
• The percentage of adolescents who reported being given prescription medications by friends or buying them from friends, both fell by more than half. 
• In 2009, adolescents who reported misusing prescription medications said the most common source was friends. Now, it is one's own prescription (37%).
• Among adolescents who reported misuse, those with multiple sources for obtaining prescription medications dropped from 56% to 29%.
• Perceived difficulty of obtaining prescription medications for misuse declined across the three drug classes.
• The percentage of adolescents who reported that they thought it would be impossible to get prescription drugs for misuse increased from 36% to 49%. 

 

School closures during COVID accounted for the largest changes because students had limited contact with each other, and opportunities to sell or give away prescription drugs to friends declined, McCabe said.

 

Study co-author Philip Veliz, research associate professor of nursing, said the declines may be partially due to changes in prescribing practices, especially for opioids. The study did not examine specific trends based on drug class. 

 

"Prescribing practices have changed dramatically because we had an opioid epidemic, which turned into a heroin epidemic, and we're still reeling from that, especially with fentanyl," Veliz said. "A lot of this also has to do with parents having better knowledge and oversight of these medications."

 

The steep decline in teens who misused prescription medications in the past year, from 11% to 2%, surprised researchers.

 

"That's a massive decline. It used to be 1 in 9 kids, now it's an incredibly rare event at this point," Veliz said. "The second surprise was that ... nearly half of kids say it's probably impossible to get these drugs if they want to use them nonmedically right now. That's a big chunk of the adolescent population, and this is just off the table." 

 

Another surprise is that the landscape has not returned to what it looked like before COVID, McCabe said. 

 

"Adolescents have found it more difficult to obtain prescription stimulants for nonmedical use in recent years, which is a positive sign," he said. "There needs to be more attention on stimulant use and diversion, and our team is currently working on such studies to help inform clinical guidelines for ADHD and stimulant use disorder."

 

This study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and used data from 12th grade students collected in 2009 through 2022 from the Monitoring the Future study, an annual survey at University of Michigan that tracks student substance use and other related trends.

 

Co-authors include: Emily Pasman, Tim Wilens, Ty Schepis, Vita McCabe and Jason Ford.

 

Study: Adolescent use, diversion sources, and perceived difficulty of obtaining prescription medications (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2024.12030) 

Crime and Safety in Schools and on College Campuses

 

The annual Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety, jointly produced by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the Institute of Education Sciences, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice, highlights new data on active shooter incidents and deaths, student victimization, bullying, students carrying weapons, mental health services offered in schools, as well as other safety and security measures, and on-campus criminal incidents at postsecondary institutions, including hate crimes. This year's report includes key findings on active shooter incidents and the possession of firearms at school, both by students and security staff. For example: From 2000 through 2022, there were 50 active shooter incidents documented in elementary and secondary schools, including 4 incidents in 2022. At postsecondary institutions, there were 18 active shooter incidents documented from 2000 through 2022, with none documented in 2022. Different data sources—which measure different phenomena—provide information on various dimensions of student weapons possession at elementary and secondary schools: The percentage of students in grades 9–12 who reported carrying a weapon (such as a gun, knife, or club) on school property at least 1 day during the previous 30 days decreased from 5 percent in 2011 to 3 percent in 2021. During the 2021–22 school year, public schools reported 10 firearm possessions per 100,000 students, which was higher than in any other school year over the previous decade (ranging from 2 to 7 possessions per 100,000 students). The percentage of public schools that reported having sworn law enforcement officers who routinely carried a firearm was lower in 2021–22 than in 2019–20 (45 vs. 51 percent). In recent years, reported incidents related to several crime and safety issues have become less prevalent at the elementary/secondary and postsecondary level when compared with about a decade earlier. The percentage of students ages 12–18 who reported being bullied during school was lower in 2021–22 than in 2010–11 (19 vs. 28 percent), although there was no consistent trend throughout the period. The total nonfatal criminal victimization rate at school for students ages 12–18 decreased between 2012 and 2022 (from 52 to 22 victimizations per 1,000 students), though the rate was higher in 2022 than in 2021 (7 victimizations per 1,000 students). The overall rate of crimes reported on campuses of postsecondary institutions per 10,000 full-time equivalent students enrolled was 16 percent lower in 2021 (16.9) than in 2011 (20.0) but showed no consistent trend for this period. The number of reported on-campus hate crimes was 12 percent lower in 2021 (667 incidents) than in 2011 (761 incidents). In 2021, race, sexual orientation, and religion were the three most commonly reported categories of bias motivating these hate crimes, accounting for 81 percent of all reported hate crimes. Browse individual indicators as part of the Condition of Education  Download, view and print the summary report as a pdf file.  (3524KB)

Science, Social Studies classes can help ESL students learn to read and write in English

A new study finds that science and social studies classes may also help young students learn English, even when those classes include difficult and technical vocabulary.

The study, which observed first- and second-grade students in 30 elementary schools in North Carolina, encouraged teachers to keep their English-learning students in class during science and social studies lessons. Science and social studies textbooks in those grades are often relatively technical and difficult for students, so traditional teaching methods in North Carolina encourage teachers to remove English-learning students from those content classes to focus on their language skills instead.

By creating a 10-week literacy program – known as a Tier 1 intervention – which kept English-learners in science and social studies classes, researchers found that those students saw improvements in their ability to write argumentative essays and use new academic vocabulary. The study highlights the importance of giving English-learners access to academic content, said Jackie Relyea, corresponding author of the study and assistant professor of literacy education at North Carolina State University.

“This study shows how important it is to provide equitable opportunities for English-learners to build knowledge in science and history, and to apply that knowledge through informational texts alongside their peers,” Relyea said. “What we found was that when English-learners have access to content-rich literacy instruction, they develop content knowledge as well as language, reading comprehension, and writing skills.”

The program used methods like interactive read-alouds, collaborative research and concept mapping to build students’ vocabulary and understanding of complex topics. Concept mapping refers to using diagrams or similar visual aids to depict connections between ideas.

Significantly, the study found that English-learners had similar levels of improvement in science and social studies vocabulary and argumentative writing as their English-proficient classmates across the 10-week program. Notably, the intervention did not lead to negative results elsewhere, which supports the idea that English-learning students can attend more complex classes without falling behind. This further suggests that content-rich literacy instruction may help narrow the achievement gap between English-learners and their peers.

The intervention also modified classes to cover individual subjects for longer. That way, Relyea said, English-learners could get comfortable with a subject early on and then continue to get value from that knowledge later.

“One thing we noticed is the importance of using coherent text sets that focus on a single topic. In more traditional literacy instruction, our study found that topics tended to change quickly and there wasn’t always a consistent throughline that the students could grab on to,” she said. “By focusing on similar subjects for longer, kids can dig deeper and develop more in-depth knowledge. It may be challenging at first, but when students encounter the same new words day after day, they become familiar with them and expand their vocabulary network. Staying on a thematic unit for longer periods also helps them become experts in the subject matter, which greatly enhances their vocabulary and comprehension skills.”

The study challenges widely held assumptions about English-learners’ academic capabilities, and highlights their readiness to engage with complex subject material despite their developing English proficiency. Relyea said that further research into incorporating small-group supplemental instruction could be valuable, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of the program even further.

Urban vs Nonurban Charter Schools Effect on College Trajectories

 The charter school movement encompasses many school models. In Massachusetts in the 2010's, the site of this study, urban charter schools primarily used "No Excuses" practices, whereas nonurban charters had greater model variety. Using randomized admissions lotteries, the authors estimate the impact of charter schools by locality on college preparation, enrollment, and graduation. 

Urban charter schools boost all of these outcomes. Nonurban charter schools raise college enrollment and graduation despite reducing state test scores and AP enrollment. The results suggest that there is more than one path to a college degree and that test score impacts may not predict college outcomes.

Tackling racisms in teacher education and in the science curricula

 

New in-depth review highlights need for more humane antiracist genomics literacy and cross-disciplinary teaching methods to promote a more inclusive science curriculum

A scoping review conducted by the Canadian Curriculum Theory Project sheds light on the pervasive presence of racism in the general curricula and a significant gap in antiracist initiatives within Canadian science education programs.

Led by principal investigator Professor Nicholas Ng-A-Fook from the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, a research team composed of Patrick Phillips, Rieley M. O’Leary, Marcus G. Parley, and Patrick R. Labelle, in collaboration with Awad Ibrahim, Lerona Dana Lewis, and Tricia McGuire-Adams, set out to examine the extent, range and nature of research activity and practice on anti-racism and science education in Canada, with a focus on genomics and genetic education and literacy.

The review’s key findings include:

• Genetic essentialisms remain a core challenge within teacher education, science education and curriculum policy. All students come to science education with implicit understandings of “race” and genetics learned from popular media and introductions to basic genetic concepts. Most students taking introductory science courses at university are only taught basic genetic literacy, which, even in the case of purportedly progressive science curricula, can serve to reinforce or instil belief in a biological foundation for “race”. Such inattention to reductive, essentialist thinking risks reproducing existing racist beliefs within past, present and future policy and practice.

 

• Disciplinary siloing limits the teaching and learning of contextualized (social, cultural, historical) genetics/genomics literacy. In the K-12 science curricula, the sociocultural and/or historical contexts of “race” are often relegated (if present at all) to the social sciences and history curricula. However, biological categorizations of “race” are still used to teach basic genetic concepts and/or as a proxy for human difference. Learners are often left with the implicit lesson that “race” is still defined as a biological concept, which in turn allows dangerous myths to persist among the public.

 

• There is an absence of science education studies and/or research programs in Canada that analyze and synthesize how various racisms and settler-colonial logic, and their respective exclusions, have framed historical and/or contemporary conceptions or debates on genetic essentialism and its respective racisms in relation to the field of genomic education and its respective literacies.

 

• Predominately white educational institutions, ranging in level from kindergarten to post-secondary, continue to reproduce science education and science curricula that often limit the educational opportunities for members of various non-white, racialized equity-seeking communities. Most science majors arrive at post-secondary institutions without having learned about racisms and anti-racisms in relation to genomics. In the case of genomics-focused fields, disciplines are often dominated by a white settler colonial logic. Meanwhile, the reproduction of genetic determinisms, framed as a biological category of race, reinforces beliefs that non-white racialized people share DNA that differs from the rest of humankind.

 

• Creating, supporting and enacting science education curricula that introduce students to a humane form of genomics literacy reduces the risk and dangers of reproducing genetic essentialisms. Genomics and genetics education assume the current order and cultural values, which risks perpetuating the understanding of race as ahistorical rather than as an historically contingent form of understanding human difference, thus undermining critical consciousness of how present and future technology might be misused.

 

“There is remarkably little educational research in Canada on the impact of settler colonial ideologies and the teaching of genetic essentialisms in genomics education,” explains Professor Ng-A-Fook. “Predominantly white institutions often perpetuate curricula that marginalize non-white racialized communities, exacerbating systemic inequities.”

This scoping review calls on science educators to draw on antiracist humane genomics literacy and cross-disciplinary teaching methods to co-create a more inclusive science curriculum. It sets the groundwork for future teacher and science education research and policy initiatives to establish a more equitable and anti-racist educational teaching and learning environments. The full report is available here.

Alternative Measures of Teachers’ Value Added

 A recent critique of using teachers’ test score value-added (TVA) is that teacher quality is multifaceted; some teachers are effective in raising test scores, others are effective in improving long-term outcomes. 

This paper exploits an institutional setting where high school teachers are randomly assigned to classes to compute multiple long-run TVA measures based on university schooling outcomes and high school behavior. 

The researchers find substantial correlations between test scores and long-run TVA but zero correlations between these two TVA measures and behavior TVA.  Short-term test-score TVA and long-run TVA are highly correlated and equally good predictors of long-term outcomes.

Algorithms used by universities to predict student success may be racially biased

 

Predictive algorithms commonly used by colleges and universities to determine whether students will be successful may be racially biased against Black and Hispanic students, according to new research published today in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. The study—conducted by Denisa Gándara (University of Texas at Austin), Hadis Anahideh (University of Illinois Chicago), Matthew Ison (Northern Illinois University), and Lorenzo Picchiarini (University of Illinois Chicago)—found that predictive models also tend to overestimate the potential success of White and Asian students. 

Video: Co-authors Denisa Gándara and Hadis Anahideh discuss findings and implications of the study

“Our results show that predictive models yield less accurate results for Black and Hispanic students, systemically making more errors,” said study co-author Denisa Gándara, an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin.

These models incorrectly predict failure for Black and Hispanic students 19 percent and 21 percent of the time, respectively, compared to false negative rates for White and Asian groups of 12 percent and 6 percent. At the same time, the models incorrectly predict success for White and Asian students 65 percent and 73 percent of the time, respectively, compared to false negative rates for Black and Hispanic students of 33 percent and 28 percent.

“Our findings reveal a troubling pattern—models that incorporate commonly used features to predict success for college students end up forecasting worse outcomes for racially minoritized groups and are often inaccurate,” said co-author Hadis Anahideh, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago. “This underscores the necessity of addressing inherent biases in predictive analytics in education settings.”

The study used nationally representative data spanning 10 years from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, including 15,244 students.

Findings from the study also point to the potential value of using statistical techniques to mitigate bias, although there are still limitations.

“While our research tested various bias-mitigation techniques, we found that no single approach fully eliminates disparities in prediction outcomes or accuracy across different fairness notions,” said Anahideh.  

Higher education institutions are increasingly turning to machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms that predict student success to inform various decisions, including those related to admissions, budgeting, and student-success interventions. In recent years, there have been concerns raised that these predictive models may perpetuate social disparities.

“As colleges and universities become more data-informed, it is imperative that predictive models are designed with attention to their biases and potential consequences,” said Gándara. “It is critical for institutional users to be aware of the historical discrimination reflected in the data and to not penalize groups that have been subjected to racialized social disadvantages.”

The study’s authors noted that the practical implications of the findings are significant but depend on how the predicted outcomes are used. If models are used to make college admissions decisions, admission may be denied to racially minoritized students if the models show that previous students of the same racial categories had lower success. Higher education observers have also warned that predictions could lead to educational tracking, encouraging Black and Hispanic students to pursue courses or majors that are perceived as less challenging.

On the other hand, biased models may lead to greater support for disadvantaged students. By falsely predicting failure for racially minoritized students who succeed, the model may direct greater resources to those students. Even then, Gándara noted, practitioners must be careful not to produce deficit narratives about minoritized students, treating them as though they had a lower probability of success.

“Our findings point to the importance of institutions training end users on the potential for algorithmic bias,” said Gándara. “Awareness can help users contextualize predictions for individual students and make more informed decisions.”

She noted that policymakers might consider policies to monitor or evaluate the use of predictive analytics, including their design, bias in predicted outcomes, and applications.

Funding note: This research was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education

Study citation: Gándara, D., Anahideh, H., Ison, M., & Picchiarini, L. (2024). Inside the black box: Detecting and mitigating algorithmic bias across racialized groups in college student-success prediction. AERA Open, 10(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584241258741