This school year, the Healthy Youth Act goes into effect, effectively ending North Carolina’s decade-long policy of “abstinence-only” sex education (see “Sexual Fantasies: Welcome to the 1950s world of CMS health education,” CL, 11.30.05). But despite the fact that a law is, you know, a law, some school districts in N.C. are dragging their feet in implementing comprehensive sex-ed, largely due to the archaic attitudes toward sex that are still prevalent in some parts of the state. Never mind that abstinence-only sex-ed has been a disastrous failure wherever it’s been taught, both in terms of preventing teen pregnancies and giving adolescents the complete information they need — it’s apparently just too embarrassing and icky for some parents to have their teens learn there’s such a thing as contraception.
Enter Amplify Your Voice, an offshoot of Advocates for Youth, which was a leading group in the political battle for comprehensive sex-ed. They are now working with other youth activists in the state “to find out who’s doing what, which school systems are refusing to follow the law, and how we can support school systems who honestly want to provide an effective education for students.” As they say, the devil is in the details, but it’s a cold, hard fact that more than 19,000 teens become pregnant every year in North Carolina, and we owe it to teenagers that they receive accurate, complete information about sexuality and sexual health. To see more information, and how you can help, read here.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2010.
How can you not consider this another “outlandish breach of citizen privacy?” This is just another example of the government acting as though it knows better than the people. If I want to teach my kids about sex ed, I will. If I don’t want to teach my kids about sex ed, I’m probably a sh*tty parent and my kids will suffer the consequences. But just as the government can’t come in to my home and teach my kids not to touch a hot stove, the government shouldn’t be the one to teach my kids about sex. This law doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Maybe the state of NC should hold a mandatory class for parents on good parenting skills.
Well said. I think that the teaching of pure abstinance is quite out dated and could use another review for the good of our children.
I never understood why this is such a hot button issue. I think it is a great idea to teach anything and everything about sex in school. Why would one not want their children to be taught anything that may be able to help them?
If parents are too embarrassed to teach about the details of sex no big deal, but let them learn it at school. Where else is there, the street?
Why not know about the responsibility of sex at a time when you are probably thinking about it anyway?
Today awareness among youngsters become necessity as they are going on a wrong path and if co-operation of both parents and schools will be there then the chances of miss-happening will be less then the current one.
“Schools are to prepare students to read and write” ?! JesusMaryJoseph, what 19th century mountain cabin did you crawl out of, Frank Bob?
And as for “They are not supposed to be running social experiments on our children,” I’m sure such an erudite gentleman as yourself knows that conservatives used that same argument when fighting against public education itself back in the ancient days from which your ideas come. You DID know that, right, Frank?