This morning the NY Post reports on parent reaction to the details of the city’s new sex ed mandate and what’s in the curriculum (see below). And there is a planned rally tomorrow calling for a true “abstinence-centered” sex ed curriculum.
At 12 noon on Monday, October 24, the Chiaroscuro Foundation and the NYC Parents’ Choice Coalition are holding rally and press conference in opposition to the NYC sex ed mandate in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The rally will be at P.S 104, 9115 Fifth Avenue, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, 11209.
We are expecting a good size crowd of community leaders and elected officials.
Today’s NY Post story should motivated many more parents to join us
tomorrow.
Parent furor at bawdy sex ed
By SUSAN EDELMAN [susan.edelman@nypost.com]
Last Updated:7:14 AM, October 23, 2011
A New York City education will now cover readin’, ’ritin’ — and
rubbers.
Sex ed, which becomes mandatory in city middle and high schools next
year, is meant to stem unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted
diseases among teens. But parents may be shocked by parts of the
Department of Education’s “recommended” curriculum.
Workbooks reviewed by The Post include the following assignments:
* High-school students go to stores and jot down condom brands, prices
and features such as lubrication.
* Teens research a route from school to a clinic that provides birth
control and STD tests, and write down its confidentiality policy.
* Kids ages 11 and 12 sort “risk cards” to rate the safety of various
activities, including “intercourse using a condom and an oil-based
lubricant,’’ mutual masturbation, French kissing, oral sex and anal sex.
* Teens are referred to resources such as Columbia University’s Web
site Go Ask Alice, which explores topics like “doggie-style” and other
positions, “sadomasochistic sex play,” phone sex, oral sex with braces,
fetishes, porn stars, vibrators and bestiality.
Told of the subjects her son could learn about, one Manhattan
middle-school mom said, “They seem pretty outrageous.”
Shino Tanikawa, a SoHo mother of two daughters, including a high-school
junior, also was taken aback.
“I didn’t know how much detail they would get,” she said.
But she added that many city kids learn about hanky-panky on their own.
Starting in the spring, the DOE will require one semester of sex ed in
sixth or seventh grades and one in ninth or 10th.
It says schools can pick any curriculum but recommends the widely used
HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk programs and trains teachers to use
them.
The curriculum “stresses that abstinence is the best way to avoid
pregnancy and STD/HIV,” the DOE said.
Lessons include role playing on resisting sexual advances and advice on
“negotiating condom use” with a partner.
The DOE says parents have the right to exclude their kids from lessons
on “methods of prevention.”
“Kids are being told to either abstain or use condoms — that both are
responsible, healthy choices,” said child and adolescent psychiatrist
Miriam Grossman, author of “You’re Teaching My Child What?”
The DOE “relies on latex,” she said.
But Grossman argues that the books minimize the dangers that pregnancy
can still occur with condom use, and that viruses such as herpes and
HPV live on body parts not covered by a condom.
Outraged? Sign the NYC Parents Choice petition here.
Leave a comment below.
