In his critique of “The Return of Character Education” (Educational Leadership, November 1993), William Benntta is certainly right about arguments concerning the variability of morality: They go at least as far back as the ancient Greeks. The Sophists argued that there were no absolutes, while Socrates argued that unchanging moral universals could be known through thoughtful discourse. But in the history of ideas, Darwinism did contribute to the notion that morality is “evolving.”
Bennetta's commentary on “Where Sex Education Went Wrong,” unfortunately, does not address my central thesis: that nondirective sex education has failed; that sex in our society is out of control; and that the best hope for developing sexual self-control is directive sex education that teaches students why sexual abstinence is the only medically safe and morally responsible choice for an unmarried teenager.
Abstinence programs are certainly not an invention of the “Religious Right,” as Bennetta would have us believe. It was Title XX legislation, responding to the documented failure of previous programs for reducing teen sexual activity and pregnancy, that funded a variety of demonstration projects—all of which included, by legislative mandate, a values-based emphasis on abstinence as the key to preventing teen pregnancies.
One of the basic premises of these programs is that the advocacy of abstinence should not be undermined by a mixed message that contraception is a “responsible” option for those teens who choose not to abstain.
For some of the most sophisticated research comparing the relative effectiveness of the newer, abstinence-based sex education programs, I encourage readers to write to the Institute for Research and Evaluation.The Institute's 1992 Report, Predicting and Changing Teen Sexual Activity Rates, finds Teen-Aid and Sex Respect—both criticized by Bennetta—to be superior to a nondirective program (Values and Choices ) in changing teen attitudes toward premarital sexual activity.
No available program is perfect, the Institute observes; to be optimally effective, programs need to address peer influences, parent attitudes, and use of drugs and alcohol, as well as sexual values (the single strongest predictor).
Against this backdrop, let me address some of Bennetta's charges against Teen-Aid, the San Marcos curriculum, and Sex Respect, three programs I recommend.
Teen-Aid materials do not “denounce contraception” but do cite contraceptive failure rates based on published data. Its texts are supported by more than 1,000 endnotes, most of them from medical journals.
Regarding abortion, Teen-Aid says that while it does seek to be an alternative to abortion, its texts offer both the pro-choice and pro-life positions in advocates' own words. Teen-Aid's texts do describe possible documented medical complications of abortions and give factual information about what abortion is. In the student handbook Me, My World, My Future, which Bennetta calls “an anti-abortion tract,” only 2 of 244 pages are devoted to the subject of abortion.
Teen-Aid's video Window to the Womb, which Bennetta terms “anti-abortion,” does not even mention abortion. Rather, it presents ultrasound footage of normal fetal development from 4 1/2 weeks onward.
To assess the accuracy of Bennetta's “pseudoscience” charges against Teen-Aid materials, readers are encouraged to examine this curriculum for themselves.
Concerning the San Marcos curriculum, Decision Making: Keys to Total Success has been cited as an exemplary program in several publications, including the U.S. Department of Education's AIDS and the Education of Our Children and the National School Boards Association's handbook of 100 outstanding school programs. Abstinence-based sex education (using Teen-Aid's materials) is only one component of the program, which also emphasizes teaching students how to succeed in school and life.
San Marcos reported that two years after program implementation, known pregnancies in the school dropped dramatically. This same kind of before-and-after program comparison was made for drug referrals, grade point averages, standardized test scores, and attendance rates—all of which showed marked improvement and won the San Marcos program a statewide award for excellence. Known pregnancy rates in San Marcos schools have continued to remain significantly lower than they were before the program.
Sex Respect is reportedly now being used in some 2,000 school districts in 50 states and in 23 countries. This program's effectiveness had been documented in a series of evaluation reports for the federal Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs by the above-cited Institute for Research and Evaluation.
The Louisiana court case Bennetta cited was brought by Planned Parenthood, long an opponent of Sex Respect and other abstinence-only programs. The judge's ruling dealt not with the acceptability of the program as a whole but with certain contested statements in the Sex Respect text. The school board deleted these and reapproved the curriculum.
The central challenge before us—not addressed by Bennetta— is how best to help our children avoid the many destructive physical and psychological consequences of premature sexual activity. The smart money, I submit, is betting on directive sex education.
