Parental Griping Successfully Waters Down Required Sex-Ed

Preschoolers could be doing this! (Shutterstock)

Last week we learned that students in city schools would be taught about sexual intercourse and its implications as the DOE set one semester of required cirriculum for sixth or seventh graders and students in their first two years of high school. Thankfully, parents who prefer to keep their children ignorant of the crucial details surrounding humanity's most primal and consequential activities have prevailed: some of the course work has been cut. Specifically, the "risk cards" that were to be used by middle schoolers to explain different types of sex acts and their health implications. Thankfully, a dusty VHS copy of Showgirls is willing to fill in the gaps.

"We thought it was not age-appropriate for 11 and 12-year-olds," a DOE spokesperson told the Daily News. The programs will become mandatory in January, but last year 43% of high schools and 64% of middle schools used the state's reccommended course work, the HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk programs. "A significant percentage of our teenagers have had multiple sex partners, so we can't stick our heads in the sand about this," Chancellor Dennis Walcott said.

But a group called NYC Parents Choice is just fine with their clean, chaste, sandy neck thank you very much. They want to be able to offer their children an abstinence-only education that "leaves out explicit lessons entirely." And HealthSmart only mentions abstinence 90 times as opposed to condoms and other methods of birth control 230 times! Who can expect a teenager to understand how "birth control" works? Better to just tell them not to have sex, because if there's one thing we know about teenagers, it's that they always do what they're told. Especially when we say that it's in their best interests.

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By Christopher Robbins in News on October 30, 2011 11:25 AM

Comments [rss]

Eric Bringslid

"Thankfully, parents who prefer to keep their children ignorant of the crucial details surrounding humanity's most primal and consequential activities have prevailed:"

Perhaps they don't want the state doing their jobs? Are you people so used to the government wiping your ass and telling you what to do that you cannot even fathom that a parent might want to do the job themselves? Pathetic.

Sulayman

No, my little princess is 12 and knows absolutely nothing about sex! School will teach her how to be a slut if her school teaches this dirty stuff. I only let her watch rated-R movies, movies she liked this year like No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits, they don't show sex in those right? Now, I have to help her get into her nurse costume because we know how wholesome a nurse is on halloween, right?

Dan

I don't get what's the big deal. When I grew up in NJ it was a requirement in 6th, 9th and 12th grade.

Dirk

Abstinence-only education. Sigh... No pun intended, but parents are screwing over their kids by keeping them ignorant.

I hope these parents don't complain when their kids get STDs, HIV or pregnant.

nicemarmot

Yep. My high school taught abstinence education, which involved outright lies about the frequency of STDs and the efficacy of contraception. We had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state.