The publishers of public school textbooks for sex education, a course that is usually called “family living” or “health” in order to minimize controversy, were taught a costly lesson earlier this month in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The local school board voted to return its entire stock of Kindergarten-through-12th-grade sec education textbooks to the publisher and request a $70,080 refund.
That’s language that any publisher ought to understand! The rising citizens’ revolt cashes out in dollars and cents. They are asserting that the brand of sex education prevalent in the public schools for the last 15 years is a primary cause of teenage promiscuity, pregnancy, illegitimate births, and venereal diseases.
The controversy had been brewing in Kenosha for two and a half years. The pot boiled over at a school board meeting on January 10 attended by hundreds of local citizens, and the final vote was decisive.
How could this happen when public opinion polls show overwhelming support for reaching sex education in the schools? How could this happen in liberal Wisconsin, one of only ten states that Michael Dukakis carried in last November’s election?
The answer to those questions lies in the answer to the question, what exactly IS sex education? When you hear that some of the protesting parents were calling the Kenosha curriculum “sophisticated pornography,” you begin to realize that it’s not about the birds and the bees.
Don’t get the idea that this battle was just between parents and teachers. On one side were both the parents and most teachers. On the other side were the school administrators, curriculum “experts,” publishers, and Planned Parenthood.
The president of the school board was a paid area representative of Planned Parenthood. Local citizens have wised up to the type of “education” that Planned Parenthood promotes, namely, any type of sexual behavior (for any age, married or unmarried) that does not result in a live birth.
Among the criticisms that teachers filed with the school board were the following. “I would not want someone else teaching these topics to my children.” “Content is too advanced and in depth for children, grades 4-6. Pictures and concepts are far too explicit.”
As an example of objectionable material in the texts, parents cited this typical assignment in the Houghton Mifflin grade 8 textbook, called Human Sexuality. “List the pros and cons of having sexual intercourse in the teen years.”
It is clearly a violation of many children’s First Amendment rights for an authority figure in the classroom to teach the “pro” arguments of unmarried minor children having sexual intercourse. In addition, such behavior is unhealthy and unwise, as well as illegal in most states.
Don’t be under the illusion that the Kenosha controversy was an example of right-wing fundamentalists trying to keep scientific facts away from children. The Charles Merrill text on Venereal Diseases designed for grades 4-6 contained unfactual, as well as unhealthy, information.
In a section called “Ways to Reduce the Chances of Getting VD,” pupils were told that they should wash their body parts with soap and water, and urinate, right after sexual intercourse so that some of the VD organisms “may be washed away.” There is no scientific basis for such a statement, and it encourages risky behavior.
Family living courses in public schools are not much about “family,” but a great deal about non-family sexual activity. “Health” courses consume much of their time with presentations of unhealthy behavior, of course (to use modern jargon) in a nonjudgmental, value-neutral way.
“Family living” courses are not all about living, either. Part of the curriculum is about dying. Among the jolly exercises assigned to 4th and 6th grade pupils (8 to 11 year olds) are: describe how you would choose to die, close your eyes and imagine you have only one month to live, write a will, research what death is like, and discuss nontraditional burials.
Norman Lear’s People for the American Way will probably soon cite Kenosha as an example of “censorship.” But the truth is that it is democracy in action. Parents and teachers rose up to defend their First Amendment rights and to stop little cliques from forcing their peculiar views about sex, health, and death onto other people’s minor children.
Incidentally, the Kenosha school district’s curriculum director left town shortly before the final vote. He moved on to Illinois where he can try peddling his wares in on other unsuspecting parents and teachers.
