The following is an excerpt from Guttmacher Institute’s 2012 State Policies in Brief on Sex and HIV Education:
HIGHLIGHTS:
General Requirements: Sex Education and HIV Education
- 21 states and the District of Columbia mandate sex education.
- 20 states and the District of Columbia mandate both sex education and HIV education.
- 1 state only mandates sex education.
- 33 states and the District of Columbia mandate HIV education; of these states, 13 mandate only HIV education.
- 29 states and the District of Columbia mandate that, when provided, sex and HIV education programs meet certain general requirements.
- 13 states require that the instruction be medically accurate.
- 27 states and the District of Columbia require that the information be appropriate for the students’ age.
- 9 states require that the program must provide instruction that is appropriate for a student’s cultural background and not be biased against any race, sex or ethnicity.
- 2 states prohibit the program from promoting religion.
- 37 states and the District of Columbia require school districts to involve parents in sex education, HIV education or both.
- 22 states and the District of Columbia require that parents be notified that sex education or HIV education will be provided.
- 3 states require parental consent for students to participate in sex education or HIV education.
- 35 states and the District of Columbia allow parents to remove their children from instruction.
Quite the array, right?
Like nearly everything else important in American life, the government controls sexual education in schools. However, decisions regarding this course, which is arguably just as important as an English or math class, are not in the hands of the federal government; sexual education mandates are made on a state-level. Thus each state has different regulations on sex-ed. A current high school student in the state of Texas may have never received any formal sexual or HIV education, as it is not mandated by the state. Yet, a current high-school student in Oregon has definitely received a sexual and HIV education because it is mandated by the state. It’s mind blowing to consider the contrasting experiences of these two peers.
Why is there no mandate by the federal government that requires all schools in the United States to teach sex and HIV education? Does this return to the age-old American question of jurisdiction, states versus federal government, or is the taboo of sex holding federal government back as it silently slides power over to individual states? Whatever the reason, states want control of what happens within their boarders, and sexual education has sometimes taken a hit. Each state determines what topics must be covered or excluded from their schools’ sex-ed courses (if sex-ed it is taught at all). Thus the premise of a school’s sex-ed, abstinence based or comprehensive, is also determined by the state.
Yet, even the decisions made by a state are not completely upheld by local authorities; school boards and administrators, and even parents make their own mandates. Although they cannot directly violate what the state has required, these small-scale decisions can tiptoe around them.
Moreover, the federal government, which at first appears to have no role in sexual-education decision making, actually makes a huge impact by funding sexual education programs within states. This financial backing, which obviously helps sex-ed programs to continue and flourish, is only made available to certain types of sex-ed. As discussed in my previous post, two types of sex-ed exist: comprehensive and abstinence-only. Since 1981, the U.S. government has funded abstinence-only sex-ed. Programs such as Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) and the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA), had been responsible for the funneling of tax payers’ dollars to abstinence-only sex-ed programs until they were killed with the passing of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010. The CBAE was then resurrected in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, but was granted less funding. Title V of the Social Security Act, the third main stream of government funding for abstinence-only sex-ed, still remains.
The allure of this funding has caused states to lean towards approving abstinence-only sex-ed instead of comprehensive sex-ed. Although one may consider any funding towards sexual education an advance on the part of our country, the funding of a type of sexual education which withholds life-saving information from youth benefits no one.
Organizations such as Advocates for Youth, whose mission is to “advocate for a more positive and realistic approach to adolescent sexual health”, work to end abstinence-only sexual education funding. SEICUS’s No More Money organization urges people to advocate for a stop to funding for abstinence-only sex-ed.
According to Advocates for Youth, “Currently, no dedicated federal funding exists to promote comprehensive sex education.” Doesn’t comprehensive sexual education deserve at least equal funding to that received abstinence-only sex-ed? The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act and the Prevention First Act, both of which would support comprehensive sex-ed programs, will hopefully be reviewed and approved by congress sometime in the near future.
With so many conflicting authorities in federal, state, and local government, I wonder what America’s youth as a whole is really learning about in sex-ed and whose hands the power to make this decision truly rests in.