Palm Beach Post Editorial
Sunday, December 30, 2007
While Palm Beach County Schools Superintendent Art Johnson has ignored sex education out of fear of a public backlash from a minority of parents, 17 percent of the county's teens ages 15-19 who had given birth before at least a second time between 2004 and 2006.
As health officials urged Dr. Johnson to adopt a fact-based, abstinence-plus curriculum, Dr. Johnson pledged to call a committee meeting to develop a timeline to eventually implement a useful curriculum. He finally agreed to update the curriculum, though less comprehensive than needed, and still the new lessons won't be ready until 2009-10, at the earliest.
Such responses prove the need for the Florida Healthy Teens Act that Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, has proposed. Senate Bill 48 (please note the editorial is incorrect, the bill is SB 848) would require that public schools that offer sex education "shall provide comprehensive, medically accurate, and factual information that is age-appropriate."
St. Lucie County schools did not need state intervention to do what was logical and necessary. The school board this month approved the Get Real About AIDS program for fourth- through 12th-graders. The sensible decision recognized that St. Lucie is No. 1 statewide for the rate of HIV/AIDS among African-Americans, 10th for whites and 14th for Hispanics.
Sen. Deutch's legislation notes that Florida, with 48,440 teenage pregnancies, has the sixth highest teen-pregnancy rate of any state, and the second highest rate of AIDS cases (100,809 known infections) in the country.
The legislation would require that districts teach "that abstinence is the only certain way to avoid pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases." The "comprehensive information," starting in the sixth grade, "emphasizes the value of abstinence while not ignoring those adolescents who have had sexual intercourse and who thereafter may or may not remain sexually active."
Palm Beach County statistics show that waiting until sixth grade is too late. A survey in 2004 of county middle-schoolers showed many had sex for the first time before age 11, had multiple partners and drank alcohol or used drugs before unprotected sex.
The Florida Healthy Teens Act would help Florida finally reverse its record-setting teen-pregnancy and AIDS rates by ensuring that students get the facts they need to make better decisions.
