[MTK]

Originally Posted by Buster

Talk about someone in the Dark Ages. 20 years ago, I had it in 7th and 8th grade.

Now they ARE beginning as young as Kindergarten in some school districts. They're also teaching homosexuality.

I'm not sure where you're finding schools that do not teach it, especially in New York.

Facts on Sex Education in the United States

Sex Education: Teens’ Perspectives

• By 2002, one-third of teens had not received any formal instruction about contraception.[9]
• More than one in five adolescents (21% of females and 24% of males) received abstinence education without receiving instruction about birth control in 2002, compared with 8–9% in 1995.[10]
• In 2002, only 62% of sexually experienced female teens had received instruction about contraception before they first had sex, compared with 72% in 1995.[11]
• Only one out of three sexually experienced black males and fewer than half of sexually experienced black females had received instruction about contraception before the first time they had sex.[12]
• One-quarter of sexually experienced teens had not received instruction about abstinence before first sex.[13]

Sex Education: Teachers’ Perspectives

• Sex education teachers were more likely to focus on abstinence and less likely to provide students with information on birth control, how to obtain contraceptive services, sexual orientation and abortion in 1999 than they were in 1988.[14]
• In 1999, one in four sex education teachers taught abstinence as the only way to prevent pregnancy and STIs—a huge increase from 1988, when the fraction was just one in 50.[15]
• The majority of teachers believe that topics such as birth control methods and how to obtain them, the correct way to use a condom, sexual orientation, and factual and ethical information about abortion should also be taught by the end of the 12th grade. These topics are currently being taught less often and later than teachers think they should be.[16]
• More than nine in 10 teachers believe that students should be taught about contraception, but one in four are prohibited from doing so.[17]
• One in five teachers believe that restrictions on sex education are preventing them from meeting their students’ needs.[18]
• Eighty-two percent of adults support comprehensive sex education that teaches students about both abstinence and other methods of preventing pregnancy and STIs.[19]
• Only one-third of adults surveyed support abstinence-only education, while half oppose the abstinence-only approach.[20]

Sex Education Policy

• Currently, 35 states mandate either sex education or education about HIV/AIDS and other STIs, but their laws tend to be very general. Policies specifying the content of sex education are typically set at the local level.[21]
• More than two out of three public school districts have a policy to teach sex education. The remaining one-third of districts leave policy decisions up to individual schools or teachers.[22]
• Eighty-six percent of the public school districts that have a policy to teach sex education require that abstinence be promoted. Some 35% require abstinence to be taught as the only option for unmarried people and either prohibit the discussion of contraception altogether or limit discussion to its ineffectiveness. The other 51% have a policy to teach abstinence as the preferred option for teens and permit discussion of contraception as an effective means of preventing pregnancy and STIs.[23]
• More than half of the districts in the South with a policy to teach sex education have an abstinence-only policy, compared with one in five of such districts in the Northeast.[24]
Government Support of Abstinence-Only Education

• There are three federal programs dedicated to funding restrictive abstinence-only education: Section 510 of the Social Security Act, the Adolescent Family Life Act’s teen pregnancy prevention component and Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE). The total funding for these programs is $176 million for FY 2006.[25]
• Federal law establishes a stringent eight-point definition of “abstinence-only education” that requires programs to teach that sexual activity outside of marriage is wrong and harmful—for people of any age. The law also prohibits programs from advocating contraceptive use or discussing contraceptive methods except to emphasize their failure rates.[26]
• Federal guidelines now define sexual activity to include any behavior between two people that may be sexually stimulating, which could be interpreted as including even kissing or hand-holding.[27]
• New federal restrictions have been expanded to target adolescents and young adults between the ages of 12 and 29.[28]
• There is currently no federal program dedicated to supporting comprehensive sex education that teaches young people about both abstinence and contraception.[29]
• Despite years of evaluation in this area, there is no evidence to date that abstinence-only education delays teen sexual activity. Moreover, recent research shows that abstinence-only strategies may deter contraceptive use among sexually active teens, increasing their risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs.[30]
• Evidence shows that comprehensive sex education programs that provide information about both abstinence and contraception can help delay the onset of sexual activity among teens, reduce their number of sexual partners and increase contraceptive use when they become sexually active. These findings were underscored in “Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior,” issued by former Surgeon General David Satcher in June 2001.[31]