Saying One Thing and Doing Another: The Paradox of Best Practices and Sex Education

ABSTRACT

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) specifies that all educational programs or curricula be supported by “scientifically based research” in order to ensure better quality control. However, in the arena of sex education, the federal government allocates millions of dollars in grants for schools and organizations to implement abstinence-only-until-marriage sex-education programs, which “scientifically based research” studies suggest are largely ineffective in preventing pre-marital sexual activity or preventing teen pregnancies and STI acquisition. This article explores this policy paradox by contemplating its origin, analyzing its components, and offering suggestions on how it can be remedied.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex education
• scientifically based research
• education policy
• politics
• No Child Left Behind

Notes

¹⁴ P.L. 108–40, § 6, struck out “2002” and substituted “2003”, effective July 1, 2003.

¹ To be clear, No Child Left Behind's provision for approaches supported by “scientifically based research” is typically used in the context of academic curricula. The law mentions sex-education only once in § 9526, which states that “None of the funds authorized under this Act shall be used … to provide sex education or HIV-prevention education in schools unless that instruction is age appropriate and includes the health benefits of abstinence” (p. 558). The paradox discussed here has to do with the conflict between demanding “scientifically based” methods in one arena (academics) and then ignoring them in another (sex education).

² In strict abstinence-only-until marriage programs, condoms or other contraceptive methods are either not discussed or only mentioned when bringing up their failure rates. Abstinence is taught as the only acceptable means for unmarried individuals to protect themselves from unintended pregnancies and STIs. Therefore, in situations where these individuals do engage in pre-marital sexual behaviors, they are less likely to use condoms in large part because the message they received from their sex education program was that condoms are ineffective, or no message was received at all. Modern medicine and public health estimates indicate that condoms are extremely effective in preventing pregnancy and most STIs, including HIV (Holmes, Levine, & Weaver, 2004) and attribute the decline in teen pregnancies over the past fifty years to increased and improved usage rates (Abma, et al., 2004). It is disheartening to acknowledge that the dismissal of condoms as an acceptable method of sexual protection is a primary component of abstinence-only programs given the high rates of STIs in the adolescent and young adult populations and the overwhelming evidence indicating that correct and consistent usage of condoms is one of the most effective ways to prevent unintended pregnancies and STIs.