The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their study Tuesday showing that the U.S. teen birth rate dropped 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, reaching a historic low of 34.3 births per 1,000 teens aged 15 to 19. It attributed the drop to several factors, including strong pregnancy-prevention messages aimed at teens and increased use of contraception.
This is the lowest national rate for teen births since the Centers for Disease Control began tracking it in 1940, and CDC officials attributed the decline to pregnancy prevention efforts. Other reports show that teenagers are having less sex and using contraception more often. Studies have backed this up. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. And in 2007, a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence.”
Mississippi has the highest teen pregnancy rate at more than 60 percent above the U.S. average and does not require sex education in schools, but when it is taught, abstinence-only education is the state standard. New Mexico, which has the second highest teen birth rate, does not require sex ed and has no requirements on what should be included when it is taught.
On the reverse end of the "Sex Education" spectrum is New Hampshire - NH has the lowest teen pregnancy rate and requires comprehensive sex education in schools that includes abstinence and information about condoms and contraception.
So what do all these pesky things known as "Facts" have to do with my statement that Senator Mary Lazich is moving Wisconsin backwards you ask...
...Senator Lazich authored the recent bill in Wiscosin that mandates Abstinence-first "sex ed" in all school districts, but does not require the teaching of contraception or body image - in essence, totally dismantling Jim Doyle's "Healthy Youth Act" which mandated comprehensive sex education in Wisconsin public schools.
Great, now because Senator Lazich and the GOP write bills with their religious beliefs first and any common sense they have lagging far behind, we have just put our children at risk for not being properly educated about their sexual well-being. Within a couple of years we will surely backtrack and join the ranks of Mississippi and New Mexico in this sad category because our kids are getting answers about sex from their older siblings, MTV, the internet and each other - instead of getting actual scientific-based answers from educated health professionals and teachers.
The conservatives will have you believe that teaching teens about contraception gives them a license to have sex . . . Does this mean that teaching people how to properly and safely handle a gun is a license to kill? Of course not, right NRA!
We can use the same logic when it comes to teaching about the holocaust. Does it give a teen a license to commit genocide because we taught them about the horrors of the Nazi death camps? Of course not. Does it give a teen a license to create an atomic bomb in their garage because we teach them chemistry? Of course not. Teaching teens about body image, sexuality, abstinence and contraception is completely logical, it is not a license to screw your classmate - but now the kids are all getting screwed - screwed out of an honest education.
Thanks Senator Lazich, our kids will soon be more dumber, more sexually oblivious, confused and possibly pregnant (gee, how did that happen?) all because of your over-reaching, back-wooded, regressive and irresponsible bill.
I urge all parents to contact their local school boards and demand that Comprehensive Sex Education continue to be taught in our middle schools and high schools - let's not short change them just because Senator Lazich is shorts-sighted and closed-minded.
p.s. I warned my readers about this bill months ago when Lazich first started passing it around the Senate to see who was stupid enough to back it. In fact this bill was the subject of my first real blog posting on the patch ~
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/04/10/461402/teen-pregnancy-sex-education/?mobile=nc
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/10/us-usa-health-teen-pregnancy-idUSBRE83904P20120410
Isn't your idea of sex ed (which differs from mine) you imposing your morality on me?
Just so long as I don't have to pay for their children, I believe that the consequences of an unwanted child will be a object lesson for their peers in what not to do or how to behave. The parents of these children will have to bear the cost of their coupling, I certainly don't want to pay for them, If their lives are ruined by their actions, and the parents of the children did not see fit to provide them with an education that explained the consequences of their actions, I see no reason for the rest of us to provide a solution to the problems they created for themselves. If you want to support them feel free to help all you want.
The problem is that parents have put this in the hands of the schools. This is something each parents should teach in the home with the values of those parents attached to the instruction. If you are the parent of a teen, do your job. That's how we will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.
As for opt-out it seems like the schools like to keep the parents in the dark about the instruction that is going on. Even more certain ways to protect parent's belief systems from the value-less indoctrination of public schools (not to mention their constantly sinking academic achievement) are charter schools and home schooling. As for the recall and education, as the taxpayers learn the dramatic turnaround in education that Act 10 has introduced (quantitative) the recall will sink into the west. ----Walker's office also pointed out that in past years, 62 percent to 70 percent of districts reported laying off teachers, compared with 31 percent this year. Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/past-schools-surveys-shed-new-light-on---results/article_c15c9dde-7eb3-11e1-9c37-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz1s1i9hG7u Qualitatively, soon we will learn of the improvement in the teacher workforce as inadequate, unmotivated and destructive teachers are managed out of the system and motivated, inspiring teachers are elevated.
Who's imposing morality on you? Are kids being taught, "Go forth and fornicate"? Now, if it's taught that abstinence is the only acceptable form of sexual behavior, then you're imposing your morality on me and mine. I grew up in an era where society used deliberate ignorance and lack of access to contraceptives in a misguided attempt to prevent teen sex. It didn't.
The system is still failing. Providing 'only the facts' gives the impression that sex is possible without consequences. That is a teaching that lacks any and moral guidelines. That, to you, is the exact opposite of the legislation as passed place the emphasis on abstinence. Yet, Bren states that the later position is legislating morality. I am arguing that teaching sex is capable without consequences if you follow the 'facts' provide by the health teacher, is its own form of morality. What gives liberals the right to replace my morality I have provided my child with their own? Having sex at all is a moral judgement, hence morality cannot be separated from its teaching.
Another sad fact is that the vast majority of parents STILL think comprehensive sex ed is taught in the school, so they do not talk to their kids about it, leaving these difficult subjects for someone else to cover. This Bill from Senator Lazich allows radical right-wing school boards to deny the teaching of facts to our kids - my guess though is that almost NO school boards (besides in good ole' Waukesha) will go the route of not offering comprehensive sex ed - because they will use their common sense and do their duty of giving teens the tools they need to make intelligent, informed decisions; something Senator Lazich did NOT do!
No teenage pregnancies ever happened in my household. Just sayin'.
I disagree that a teaching of bare fact without any judgement will undermine any moral teaching from the home. Unfortunately some conservatives are so insecure about their teachings that they're afraid any alternate view will be the end of the world. Having sex at all is a moral judgement? I've been married for over thirty years, and I can assure you that a certain 'consequence' doesn't happen every time if you know what to do.
Now Mr. Hoffa as to your comment, Lazich's bill does give SOME control to the local school bored, but she still MANDATES that abstinence be taught. She cant have it both ways, she cant mandate what she wants and leave the rest optional and then say shes giving control back to the local school bored.
If you are so discusted with suburbia why don't you move to the east side of Milw and be with people of like mind.
Yours in the best interest of the birds and the bee's...