This post is about Kansas education. No, it’s not evolution this time, though – it’s sex ed that’s under the gun this time.
School districts in Kansas must get parents’ written permission before teaching their children sex education
So … special permission is required to teach sex ed now. One wonders if this will increase the teen pregnancy rate in Kansas, snce it’s likely to reduce the number of kids getting sex ed classes. (Of course, if they were “abstinence only” classes, it might not make much of a difference.) Perhaps for an encore, the Kansas school board can require parental consent before teaching evolution in biology class or atomic theory in chemistry – both as controversial as sex ed is with some religious folks.
“It’s about empowering parents. That’s the bottom line,” said board chairman Steve Abrams.
No, it’s about making it more of a chore to have sex ed classes – so more kide won’t have them. After all, if we don’t teach kids what sex is, there is just no way for them to find out what it is on their own. (Oops – I just blew another sarcasm meter there.)
I look at it this way – do you want your kids to learn about sex from you and a curriculum at school that you have access to, or do you want them to learn it “on their own” from the seedier side of the internet?
One board member wants the new policy to go further and require abstinence-only courses. “We need to send the correct message,” Kathy Martin said.
Under her proposal, a school could lose its state accreditation if it did not offer nine weeks of instruction on “abstinence until marriage” at least once in grades 6-9.
The “correct message” being that they want teenaged boys and girls to get sexually transmitted diseases? Because that abstinence instruction isn’t going to magically turn off the hormones. It may make it more likely that those hormone-filled teens won’t use any protection, though.
(… and I fail to see how an “abstinence only” message would require nine weeks of instruction. Here, I’ll give it in one sentence. “Not having sex is the only 100% effective way to avoid pregnancy. So don’t have sex.”)