In Texas, a stand to teach 'abstinence only' in sex ed

By Stacy A. Teicher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Presidential politics isn't the only realm where the Texas way prevails. As a heavyweight in the $4.3 billion textbook market, the state puts its stamp on materials bound for many of the nation's classrooms.

On Friday, two messages came through loud and clear as the State Board of Education voted on a new list of approved health books: That abstinence should be taught without any textbook discussion of contraception. And that the books should be explicit about marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Texas is one of 21 states with a centralized process to review textbooks, but it's the second-biggest market. "If groups can be successful in California and Texas in getting some restrictions as to what content is covered, that will have a major influence on textbooks that are sold nationally," says Martha McCarthy, chancellor's professor of education at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Everything from evolution to multiculturalism has come up for scrutiny in textbook debates over the past century. But the origin of the state-approval process dates even further back to just after the Civil War. Southern states organized to keep out textbooks that they saw as disparaging the Confederacy, so Northern publishers began sending separate books with more palatable references, like "the War for Southern Independence," according to a September report on textbooks by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington.

The report criticizes states that dictate what books schools can purchase, saying the practice "entices extremist groups to hijack the curriculum, and papers the land with mediocre instructional materials." Textbook publishing is ripe for reform, it argues, because students spend somewhere between 50 percent and 90 percent of class and homework time focused on textbooks.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1109/p12s01-legn.html

if teen pregnancies rise by 75%.

I doubt it.

Pregnant teens make little blonde babies. Little blonde babies make lots of money in adoptions. Every right-to-life group has an adoption arm.

Any questions?

n/t

Go visit our county hospital...Parkland Memorial. Not many pretty blue eyed blonde kids there. Plenty of 13 and 14 yr old MOTHERS you could go visit..and the 30 yr old GRANDMAS. While you are there, swing thru the Neonatal ICU to visit with the preemies, many of whom will be disabled for life due to little if any prenatal care. Especially the ones whose mothers travelled up to Dallas from the "valley" near the TX-Mexico border. Those preemies have the worst birth defects because not only is there NO prenatal care but the mothers were exposed to all the birth defect causing TOXINS down there in the valley.

Now that the Texas neocons have hijacked our textbooks, what do they plan on doing with the larger than life billboard in Dallas for the "Condoms to Go" store on Greenville Ave? Are they going to pull an Ashcroft/naked statue deal and cover it with cloth??

Take a peek..in Texas for the year 2000---under BUSH'S regime...gee, hmm..looks likes the shrub brothers' states took 2 out 3 top states for abortions..yeah, they know what the hell they are doing... NOT.


1 New York 129,678

2 Florida 88,563

3 Texas 76,121


http://tinyurl.com/4l22l

The smart Texans know how to educate/protect themselves and others, no doubt...it's the stupid ones I worry about.

We have the pResident who hijacked our nation. Just get in line and do the bunny hop across the aisle, and all will be well.
</sarcasm>

No Sex Ed?

Why heavens yes...It's about time that someone came up with a wonderful idea to stop all this Sex that is going on.

I was thinking of a Cool, Catchy slogon like "Just say No"

. . . to our superintendent several months ago. Was very deceptive in setting the appointment - claimed it was about a "grant opportunity." Turned out it was an abstinence-only health program that had grant funds attached. My supt. could hardly keep from laughing her out of the office. She was appalled.

"Just say Blow"

I mean, really, who cares about Texas? I know, they determine a large share of the available textbook market, but I think there are enough sane states left that will say, "Enough is enough. Publishers, we will NOT be buying that version of the health text, so come out with another one or we'll come up with our own curriculum and skip a text altogether."

barely touched upon the use of contraceptives, and really just preached abstinence. And yet, my town (Carlsbad, NM), wonders why our teen pregnancy rate is among the highest in the entire state.

....is a documentary on just this stuff.

Shown on the Trio channel. If anyone gets a chance it's a must-see.

care of? None of these republicans support ANY programs for these poor children after they are born. They just want these babies born so they can starve and be beat and neglected? Really though, this just makes me sick.... I really think they are purposely breeding a slave race or something. Why have these babies and not support funding to take care of these babies. How can anyone who professes to love babies wish upon these babies to be born in these dire situations. God it makes me f*cking crazy!!!!! Nobody loves the idea of abortions, are these morons to blind to see that?

"God will provide". Keep repeating it over and over - God will provide. It's in the Bible - somewhere. I think.

See? There's an answer for EVERYTHING!

All hail the Corporation
All hail the Corporation
Used to be the church that wanted lots of babies
Life is cheap when the birthrate goes up, so is labor.
Gotta raise the rate cuz brown people might out-breed the racist white
folks.
All hail the Corporation and breed so it might prosper.

ready


get set....




GO!

in Texas which has the highest rate in the nation. You do the math!
Reportedly we also have an enormously high unwed mother (esp teens) rate as well.

A friend who works at the medical school told me the amazing statistics. And, since the schools adopted abstinence only teaching policies, the std rate has risen.

The friend, an ER physician, says that he hears more 17 year olds with "interesting" ideas about what is sex and what isn't and a complete sense of denial about consequences. Its sad

I have known far too many young women who, because of their ignorance in matters related to sexuality (especially birth control, let alone other health issues), not only had several children by different fathers (or married men, etc), but were also more likely to feel like they couldn't accomplish anything else. Knowledge = power. An educated society is dangerous to the Powers That Be. Small wonder sex ed is given such a bad rap by certain political and religious organisations.

Ironically, a great number of the women I've mentioned also came from VERY religious (Christian) families. You can't tell an entire population not to have sex and expect them all to obey.

A decade ago there was quite the interesting trend in South Texas. STD rates rose dramatically among teenagers.

The story is that girls wanted to preserve their virginity and were under the mistaken impression somehow that anal sex would somehow prevent them from catching STD's, when in fact it places them even more at higher risk.

But at least they were right about not getting pregnant from it.

me when I was sixteen that I had to wait till I got
married to have sex, I would have died laughing at them.

Ban hormones and be done with it. How many centuries is it gonna take for the acceptance of human nature?

to be near them.

this idiotic retrograde belief system. She married my Dad and it worked out OK, but think of the millions for whom it was a disaster.

Why are these people so utterly UNABLE to learn from 2000 year's worth of lessons

or a laugh-in about the radical conservatives. Urban Texans aren't lookly kindly at the rural guys. They've joined the effort to "Buy Democrat".

I'm a teenager, and I'll say one thing: MY PEERS HAVE SEX. Whether they get preached abstinence or not, it doesn't stop them from doing it. I'd much rather have them learn how to do it in a safe manner, ala contraception and sex education, as opposed to getting stupid and pregnant because they couldn't take care of themselves.

got a problem ? just ignore it ,never admit it,that would be weak.
as a 50s-60s kid,they never mentioned sex,much less how to deal with it,that was left up to the imaginary sit com familly in thier half hour a week of dad fumpling around in a cardigan sweater.Who had sex got pregnant and had babies,jobs were plentifull,life was safe yada yada but things have changed.The old farts my age who run this country into the ground are ignorant
self centered scum bags only concerned with making more money for that gated communitty with the media room and maid's closet. Father knows best was a t.v. show and it doesn't exist.

killing animals is just fine? If those little squirrels
wern't having sex, there would be none to shoot!

I guess parents should take the responsibility for sex ed for their children. I know I wish mine had. At least our sex ed program in school was good. About 4 years too late, but good.

that tried to get dinosaurs stricken from the textbooks for fear kids might not believe in creationism.

Sure, if you never drive you can never be in an accident. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't learn about, or have access to, seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, etc.

Exactly what does teaching abstinence amount to? I mean it is obvious that if people don't have intercourse, there won't be pregnancies. Lesson over.

I suppose this is really an opportunity to drag some religious revivalism into the schools.

I remember in Corpus Christi in 1995 being a freshmen and attending an "optional" school sponsored lecture by this born again Christian woman who gave a very hate filled speech about abstinance and reclaiming virginity and the evils of sodomy and homosexuality and trying to scare us in generall. She had a very comical southern accent (even for Texas) and was not the most attractive person otherwise. Any time she mentioned her own sexual history it ellicited a few "ewwws" from the audience. Even at the time it seemed like the wrong approach.

Abstinence should be one part of a multipronged approach that covers all bases. Kids will always have sex. It's important that are as informed as possible. And you can do so without sanctioning or encouring it or resorting to scare tactics.

The adults think kids are stupid obedient and fawning enough to buy into the abstinence mantra. Ain't gonna happen, captain.

IT was put very well by a british chap commenting on a visit to
England by a bunch of Texas- silver ring abstinance cult persons...
"Surely the country with the highest rate of teenage pregnancy (US) has
a lot to teach the country with the second highest rate. (UK)"
/sarcasm.

And we wonder why Texas gets such a bad rap...geez, that is like saying to the rest of the world that "shrub's way" is "America's way" when 50+ million of us KNOW OTHERWISE! AARRRGGHH!!

Speaking as a mom who has taken her teen daughter to Planned Parenthood and had both kids take a sex ed thru our church <yes, I said church--we are Unitarian Universalists>, I resent the writer's assumption that "presidential politics" and and his neocon "way" are reflective of Texans!

Guess she missed the Washington Post's article on Dallas County electing a Hispanic lesbian for county sheriff???

The writer can take her "Texas way" and put it where the sun don't shine!

I live outside of Houston, and this is just unbelievable! The rate of teen pregnancy is truly ridiculous. Not to mention the babies found in gymbags, band cases, septic systems, dumpsters, etc.

I have two children, both still in elementary school. My ten year old proceeded to explain to me that he knew how the cat got pregnant, complete with pelvic motions and sound effects (not cat related). Turns out his friends has explained things...sort of. I had to find out what he knew so that I could correct the misinformation.

The cat was recently spayed, and my eight year old daughter made a comment that kitty couldn't have any more boyfriends. Before it was over, she learned that babies come from sex...not major details, mind you. She has declared she's never having sex because she doesn't want to get pregnant. AH! To be young again!

The argument against proper education (contraceptives, etc.) is that by giving the kids this information, you are encouraging them to be sexually active. Newsflash - These kids are going to have sex if they want to, with or without the education. They should at least be informed as to how to safely proceed.

Living here in Texas, I know how many parents will not be disgraced by a pregnant teen (because what will the Jones that live across street think). And so will send little Susie, Mary and Charlotte to a girls home to have the baby and dump it there. Not to worry, the nuns or baby brokers will make sure that baby gets a good home. While they get a great fee for the sale of that baby.

Texas is already listed as 5th in the nation for teen pregnancies..guess someone in Austin didn't get the memo that our goal should be to go DOWN the list and not UP it??

I thought yellow rogue and asscrack were eliminating all that human traffic stuff.

Must B why asscrack is sooooooo Xhausted!

no worries of pregnancies but HIV is going through the roof. abstinence only...HAH! maybe over the rainbow and through the woods...:eyes:

let's assume abstinence is the best thing to beat teen pregnancy.

But what about the married people?

Are we going back to the bad old days, when people didn't know what to do on their wedding night? Or are men supposed to get a little "experience" on the side from a "bad" woman before marriage? Or the days when sex was a painful experience for a woman because her husband didn't know how to approach her? Or married people lived with strange infections that they didnt know how to deal with until they got out of control and destroyed their health? Or infections that got passed along to babies because the parents weren't treated properly.

What about contraception within marriage? Are we going back to the 10 child family? What the hell is this damn board of education doing in their own personal lives? Do they use contraception themselves?

People need to know how their bodies work.

Third World, here we come.

...that does seem to be the ultimate goal...

This backwards thinking seems to be the latest craze, baby!

Are we ready for the 'Scopes Monkey Trial' Part II?