Education Working
Paper
No. 4 January 2004
Sex,
Drugs, and Delinquency in
Urban and Suburban Public
Schools
Jay P. Greene, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow, Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research
Greg Forster, Ph.D.
Senior Research
Associate, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
Executive
Summary
For the last several decades middle-class families have
been fleeing from
the cities to the suburbs, in part because many parents see
the suburbs, and
suburban public schools in particular, as refuges from the
disorder and
social collapse they see as endemic to America's urban school
districts.
Parents believe that suburban public schools provide children with
safer,
more orderly, and more wholesome environments than their urban
counterparts.
This report finds that those perceptions are unfounded.
Using hard data on
high school students from the National Longitudinal Study
of Adolescent
Health, one of the most comprehensive and rigorous studies of
the behavior
of American high school students, it finds that suburban public
high school
students have sex, drink, smoke, use illegal drugs, and engage in
delinquent
behavior as often as urban public high school students. Students
also engage
in these behaviors more often than most people
realize.
This report finds that:
* Urban and
suburban high schools are virtually identical in terms of
widespread sexual
activity. Two thirds of all suburban and urban 12th
graders have had sex; 43%
of suburban 12th graders and 39% of urban 12th
graders have had sex with a
person with whom they did not have a
romantic
relationship.
* Pregnancy rates are high in
both suburban and urban schools, although
they are higher in urban schools;
14% of suburban 12th grade girls and 20%
of urban 12th grade girls have been
pregnant.
* Over 60% of suburban 12th graders have tried
cigarette smoking,
compared to 54% of urban 12th graders; 37% of suburban
12th graders have
smoked at least once a day for at least 30 days, compared
to 30% of urban
12th graders.
* Alcohol use followed a
similar pattern; 74% of suburban 12th graders
and 71% of urban 12th graders
have tried alcohol more than two or three
times; 63% of suburban 12th graders
and 57% of urban 12th graders drink
without family members present; 22% of
suburban 12th graders and 16% of
urban 12th graders have driven while
drunk.
* About four out of ten 12th graders in both urban
and suburban schools
have used illegal drugs; 20% of suburban 12th graders
and 13% of urban 12th
graders have driven while high on
drugs.
* Urban and suburban students are about equally
likely to engage in other
delinquent behaviors such as fighting and
stealing.
The data show that fleeing from the city to the suburbs doesn't
produce much
difference in the levels of sex, substance use, and delinquency
one finds at
the local public high school. The comforting outward signs of
order and
decency in suburban public schools don't seem to be associated
with
substantial differences in student
behavior.
*********************************************
About the
Authors
Jay P. Greene is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute's
Education
Research Office, where he conducts research and writes about
education
policy. He has conducted evaluations of school choice and
accountability
programs in Florida, Charlotte, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and San
Antonio. He
has also recently published research on high school graduation
rates,
charter schools, and special education.
His research was cited
four times in the Supreme Court's opinions in the
landmark Zelman v.
Simmons-Harris case on school vouchers. His articles have
appeared in policy
journals, such as The Public Interest, City Journal, and
Education Next, in
academic journals, such as The Georgetown Public Policy
Review, Education and
Urban Society, and The British Journal of Political
Science, as well as in
major newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal and
the Washington
Post.
Greene has been a professor of government at the University of
Texas at
Austin and the University of Houston. He received his B.A. in
history from
Tufts University in 1988 and his Ph.D. from the Government
Department at
Harvard University in 1995. He lives with his wife and three
children in
Weston, Florida.
Greg Forster is a Senior Research
Associate at the Manhattan Institute's
Education Research Office. He is the
co-author of studies evaluating
vouchers, charter schools, high-stakes
testing, special education funding,
and other education issues. He has
published op-ed articles in the Los
Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer,
the New York Post, and other
newspapers. He received a Ph.D. with Distinction
in Political Science from
Yale University in May 2002, and his B.A. from the
University of Virginia,
where he double-majored in Political and Social
Thought and Rhetoric and
Communications Studies, in
1995.
About Education Working Papers
A
working paper is a common way for academic researchers to make the results
of
their studies available to others as early as possible. This allows
other
academics and the public to benefit from having the research
available
without unnecessary delay. Working papers are often submitted
to
peer-reviewed academic journals for later
publication.
*********************************************