Much of the cyber community that may have stumbled upon my latest blog post might brush it off as teenage ramblings or perhaps just someone “bs-ing” to pass a class. No. I truly feel strongly about this topic. However, strong feelings only cover one third of the rhetorical triangle that my dearest Huff demands of her students. Now I must give you a little credibility. And whilst I am naught but a silly teenage girl, my sources have much more credibility than I.
CBS did a report on Abstinence-Only education in January of 2008. Under the Bush administration Congress pushed “abstinence-only” funding into schools. There were many objections to this including the first rise in teen births in fifteen years.
At the time, a reported fifteen states rejected the funding because as the governors are saying, ”Even if this administration is going to continue to push abstinence-only, we in the states are going to do the right thing by teens and actually give them the information they need to actually prevent an unintended pregnancy.’ But the states are split on what is required to be taught for sex-ed. Fourteen require a comprehensive class, nineteen require only abstinence, but contraceptive is allowed to be taught, and seventeen don’t have guidelines for their school boards teaching.
Another site that I found in my recent research is an article from The Washington Post from April of 2007. It portrays a study authorized by Congress that followed two-thousand students from primary school into high school. All these students received family life services in their community and more than half received abstinence-only education. At seventeen, half of these students admitted to being sexually active. Less than a quarter of these groups stated that they had used a condom or other form of contraceptive. More than a third of them had two or more partners.
As you can see, some very reliable sources agree with me. Abstinence-only education is an epic-fail. The best method for protecting the adolescents of America is a comprehensive course.
Hmmm…are there any other factors that could account for the rise in teen births in the CBS report? Just wondering–was the abstinence-only education the single factor to the rise?
Does teens admitting to have sex equate a failure in abstinence-only education? Might that be like a teen who’s taken driver’s ed having a car wreck and saying the driver’s ed course is a complete failure?
…but then the teen simply didn’t follow the rules taught in the driver’s ed course, so we have to change the curriculum to account for the teens who won’t heed the lessons taught. Right?
…what? I’m not quite following you. Using your driver’s ed example: Just because you take a driver’s ed course doesn’t mean you aren’t going to have an accident. Using this analogy, teaching abstinence only sex is like teaching driver’s ed without including information like how to wear a seat belt or what do do if you do get into an accident. But I’m not sure how effective this analogy is.