From jessea@uclink2.berkeley.edu Thu Dec 15 09:57:15 1994 PUBLICATION DATE: 12/11/94 Vote's In, And Sex-Ed Clearly Wins BY STEVE TWOMEY Washington Post (N.B. The Fairfax County Public Schools Family Life Curriculum and related materials are available from Jerald Newberry, Director of Family Life Education, Lacey Instructional Center, 3705 Crest Drive, Annandale VA 22003, 703-846-8654.) Getting 97.7 percent of us to agree on anything, even innocuous stuff, is tough. Let's see a show of hands, for instance, on whether today is Monday. (Just a sec; I'm counting.) You'll have to trust me, but only a slim majority say it is. I doubt 97.7 percent of us agree that living beats dying. I doubt 97.7 percent believe things go better with Coke. So when 97.7 percent of us voice no objection to something, I'd say we don't have a controversy. We have a miracle. It just so happens I've found such a thing. Each fall, the public schools of Fairfax County mail home one letter per student telling parents that, as required by state law, sex is on the menu again. (Okay, I'm kind of paraphrasing.) Included with the letter is an outline of what will be taught, which varies by grade. Much of Family Life Education isn't about sex, actually, but about coping with loss, respecting others, staying healthy and such. In the early grades, FLE is only that. Sex appears in the fifth grade, and by the 10th, there are lessons on sexually transmitted diseases, sexual orientation, abortion and contraception. The letter tells parents that teachers will cover "diverse opinions toward abortion," "advantages and disadvantages of various contraceptives," "saying no assertively" and "prevention and dangers of untreated STDs." Ninth-grade parents learn there will be lessons in "postponing sexual activity until marriage." FLE falls somewhat short of indoctrination in the Playboy philosophy. The letter says parents can request more information and review the books and films used. It says that if they object to all or any part of the program, they can fill out an enclosed form and their child will be excused and given other lessons, no questions asked, no penalties inflicted. Last year, here's how many of the 136,733 Fairfax students were removed by their parents: 2.3 percent. Here's how many were not: 97.7 percent. Statewide, the opt-out figure is 1.7 percent. No doubt some Fairfax kids were left in because Mom or Dad forgot to return the form, didn't care or didn't understand. There are more than a few marginal parents out there. Let's be generous and say an additional 10 percent - more than three times the known rate - would have opted out if they had been paying attention. That brings us to an endorsement rate in Fairfax of ... 87.7 percent. Still a miracle of support. The People have spoken. So I'm perplexed as to why Gov. George Allen wants to fix an unbroken car. He wants to amend the FLE law. Under his proposal, if a school system wants to have the program, fine, but the state would no longer require it. He adds that any system that keeps FLE would have to make parents opt in, not out. Under this plan, 97.7 percent of the parents in Fairfax would have had to return a form last year, not 2.3 percent. That would have been, let's see, 133,588 forms instead of 3,145. It would have taken the school system 4,453 hours to process those forms at two minutes a pop, which amounts to one person working 40 hours a week for more than two years. That wouldn't have been quite fast enough to be useful in the school year at hand, of course, so 50 employees would have been needed to finish the job in two weeks. Wasn't the last election about less government? William C. Bosher Jr., a likable soul who is Allen's state superintendent of public instruction, said by phone the other day that because FLE involves sensitive subjects, it's not enough for parents to acquiesce passively. "We would ask each family to make an overt decision to have the young person participate," Bosher said. He said that by doing that, the parents will have a greater stake in making sure the child learns the right values to go along with the lessons. The administration evidently thinks that at the moment, awesome numbers of parents don't know what they're doing when they choose not to return the opt-out form. Bosher also said that schools are being asked to do so many things now that only half the day is spent on math, English and other basics. Schools should have the option of concentrating on them. "We need to return to those things for which we're primarily responsible," he said. The administration evidently thinks that sexuality and issues surrounding it are peripheral to producing an informed, healthy young citizen. Bosher also said no statewide evidence exists that FLE has reduced teenage pregnancies and other sex-related problems. Considering the program has been up and running for only about five years, however, it might be too soon to tell. If it helps, pregnancies among 15- to 17-year-olds in Fairfax County are down, from 610 in 1988 to 400 in 1992, and cases of sexually transmitted diseases among 15- to 19-year-olds have yo-yoed, but the trend has been down. What Allen is doing is catering to a core of conservatives that dislikes FLE and that, in Fairfax, is behind battles over the libraries as well as the schools. These opponents aren't bothered by the basic biology of FLE so much as by what they see as insufficient emphasis on postponing sex until marriage, preferably marriage to the other gender. An opponent said Friday, for example, that talking about contraceptives gives youngsters the message that abstinence isn't really what's expected of them. They'll behave promiscuously. As if millions weren't long before FLE. Why opponents think switching to an opt-in system would make matters better is a mystery, unless they hope that creating mountains of paperwork will gradually kill FLE as it is. FLE must be fine as it is, though. Parents would be yanking out their kids by the tens of thousands if they were coming home to report that teacher urged them to go gay, have sex in groups or get pregnant at 12. Given the sex-filled culture and the realities of teenage behavior and AIDS, most parents must feel that students need information about protecting themselves just as much as they need words of abstinence. Most parents? Try 97.7 percent. Where's the issue? *+*+*+*+*+*+ Jessea Greenman Co-Chair, Project 21, GLAAD/SFBA 1360 Mission #200, San Francisco CA 94103 ph/fax @ home: 510-601-8883 [Project 21 has received major funding from the Columbia Foundation.]