This week, the folks at Texas Freedom Network released a report encouragingly titled Sex Education in Texas Public Schools: Progress in the Lone Star State.
The bad news is that, unsurprisingly, abstinence-only education is still the predominant strategy in Texas, with about three-fourths of school districts using this approach. But the good news is that use of the abstinence-plus approach is surging. In 2008, less than 4 percent of school districts were using it; now it's over 25 percent.
Abstinence-only is the kind of curriculum where the only thing students learn about contraception is the failure rate. Or, at least in my Texas high school, the kind of curriculum where students write on the blackboard the ways that pre-marital sex will ruin their lives. Abstinence-plus, while still echoing the mantra of "don't have sex," at least acknowledges various kinds of contraception and their role in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. It often even includes medically accurate information!
The report cites a couple of reasons cited for this change, neither of which are realizations on the part of Rick Perry or the Republican legislature to offer medically accurate and potentially lifesaving information in schools. One is that the Worth the Wait sex education program, which is used in around 20 percent of school districts around Texas, has shifted from abstinence-only to an approach that includes discussion of contraception. The other is action at the local level to make sure that schools are actually teaching kids - usually at the school board level with input from a local School Health Advisory Council . San Marcos is a great example, according to TFN Communications Director Dan Quinn, where "parents and educators there were alarmed at the high number of teen mothers in the district and pushed the school board to adopt a more responsible approach to sex ed."
Though our politicians may not be getting any more reasonable, there's at least some reason to believe this trend may continue. According to Quinn:
"The truth is, responsible, comprehensive sex education just isn't all that controversial among most parents. Our poll last year showed that 80 percent of likely voters in Texas support teaching about condoms and other forms of contraception as well as abstinence. So it's way past time for state officials to stop bowing to the demands to a vocal, pro-ignorance minority and start helping local school districts move away from failed abstinence-only policies."
So we may still be a ways off from having comprehensive sex ed implemented widely across Texas. But at least in a growing number of school districts, students are finally starting to learn facts. |
