Your government spends over $200 million of your tax dollars every year teaching kids about sex-education. And in the last few years, this number has gone up about $22 million per year. As the new Congress and new legislators grapple with what to do with the federal minimum wage, where to go with Iraq, and how to get along with one another, I have a suggestion for them.
Cut off government funding for sex-education in schools.
Whether you belief in abstinence-only education or comprehensive, everyone can agree that this is a waste of money. People in favor of abstinence say they aren’t getting enough help from school districts, while people in favor of comprehensive education feel that they aren’t getting the money. This will all be put to rest once the government adopts my plan.
First off, I should come clean. If I really had to pick a side, I would have to argue for abstinence-only education. The statistics on the effectiveness are all over the board, but from personal experience I feel that it is the best way to educate students. And I do want them to be educated.
So where, you wonder, are students supposed to learn about sex? The mere fact that anyone has to ask that question anymore is a real concern. Kids need to learn about sex from their parents.
I’m not real sure how parents gave up their right to educate their children on this issue in the first place, but then again, I’m also not real sure how schools came away from focusing on reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic and got onto condoms and contraception. This could probably explain why the U.S. is at the back of the pack in many subjects compared to the rest of the world. The student’s in Thailand are learning math; our students are learning where to pick up the cheapest condoms.
Did sex just become too awkward for parents nowadays? Are the kids just too embarrassed? I’m not really sure how having a half-hour conversation with your parents every once and a while is more embarrassing than taking a whole semester of health classes learning how to put a condom on a banana, but then again, I guess I have been out of my teenage years for nearly 2 months. Times sure are a changing.
Anyways, I’ve been hearing a lot of statistics on sex-education. People in favor of comprehensive teaching seem absolutely certain that the general public favors their side. Some abstinence-only advocates even concede that point, but say that the general public just doesn’t understand what kind of things will be taught once our government starts handing over all that money to the other side. This can all be solved if we just allow the parents to deal with the issue.
Lockport, New York tried comprehensive sex-education for awhile. The Wilson Central School District’s school board eventually had to meet up over the continuing of the program because of legitimate concerns from the community. Several parents voiced concerns about a program that teaches fifth graders about homosexuality, masturbation, and abortion. How could they possibly do such a thing! Don’t they understand that comprehensive sex-education is the only kind that works? When I was in fifth grade, I wondered which girls I would have to run away from on the playground so as not to get cooties; what is this district possibly thinking?
Masturbation seems be a hot topic lately as several districts in Massachusetts were getting criticized for teaching about it to students as young as third grade. I would certainly love to put the issue of what type of education our children should have up for debate. This will never be voted on, however. Do you think supporters of comprehensive sex-education are going to allow parents to hear horror stories like these?
The bottom line is that parents need to be more responsible. It may be difficult to find the time (or the patience) to talk to your kids, but it needs to be done. I don’t understand why most parents wouldn’t want to do this anyways; regardless of what your values are, they’re your values, don’t you want to share them with your children? This debate isn’t even a slippery slope; there is no slope. We have parents on one hand who are educating their children and keeping them away from the type of education they might otherwise be getting in public schools, and on the other hand we have parents finding out that their 8 and 9-year-olds are learning how to come out of the closet.
A reoccurring theme in our countries history is that when you let the government control something it gets screwed up. I’m not here to debate economics, but the examples of this are easy to come by; education, health care, businesses…the list goes on and on. The government controls how children are educated in most aspects; they don’t need to decide what your children need to know about sex.
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2 comments:
1. Am I a creeper that I saw on the facebook feed that you added a website and I went to check it out? I guess more likely it's that I am super bored waiting for school to start.
2. I have no idea how this "blogspot" knows that my name is Cole. STRANGE. CREEPY.
3. I do recognize that a lot of money is being wasted on ineffective programs for abstinence and/or safe sex, but I don't think that means that sex education should be eliminated altogether. There are aspects of sex education that my parents could not have taught me without going back to school themselves. My mom is a nurse so I suppose she has a heads up over some other parents out there, but were the responsibility left to parents to teach about reproduction, would they remember all the anatomy and biology they learned 20-30 years ago? Probably not. Unless a required human anatomy class (or a more in depth biology class) is tacked on to the jr. high curriculum, I think sex ed is a must. Also, because my mom is a nurse, she is up to date on all the most common STDs, the symptoms, the effects, etc. But most parents are not as familiar with the discoveries that have been made about old and new stds in the past 10-20 years. We do not expect parents to know and understand the math and science that their children are learning. We do not expect them to read all the books that their children do so that they can explain the intricacies of them to their children. No, that is what the school is for; the school teaches the children what the parents have forgotten or never learned. Why is sex education any different? It's true that seminars on coming out of the closet or masturbating could be done away with (leave that stuff up to the parents) but getting rid of sex education altogether would, in my opinion, be a grave mistake.
4. Haven't talked to you in a while, hope all is well.
5. I dislike even numbers--didn't want to end on one.
parents need to quit being so scared to talk to their kids about sex. The more you don't tell them the more they find out on their own. If parents would quit pushing this abstinence only BULLSHIT, then maybe these kids would have a better view of sex and its consequences, and choose for themselves to wait. QUIT SHELTERING YOUR KIDS, BE REAL WITH THEM. We now live in 2008, things aren't as black and white anymore, there are alot more gray areas these days and all you are doing by sheltering your kids is hurting them.
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