I have no idea wtf you're talking about. My point was that public schools are rapidly becoming a cesspool of half-truths, poor standards, and "traditional" ignorance. Given that I don't want my kids being raised to our ever detiorating status quo - homeschooling looks appealing.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/family/failure.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/jun/14/schools.publichealth
Interesting. You reference a 1994 article written by a think tanker for the The Institute for American Values, which has as it's goal to strengthen families and civil society in the U.S. and the world. The group supported the gay marriage ban and the President of the group, Maggie Gallagher, helped W. by accepting a $21,500 contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to promote President Bush's marriage promotion initiatives. The contract included ghostwriting articles for department officials, writing brochures and briefing department officials. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Maggie_Gallagher (Among other things.) Curiously enough, the author, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, made her fame by writing a defense of Dan Quayle in a previous edition of the Atlantic. The article itself is short on facts and long on analysis of perceived contradictions within the Sex Ed approach of the early 1990's. Still, she gives away her bias in her closing statement: Body oil? Not much hyperbole there, eh? This is a dressed up version of the traditional winger critique of Sex Ed... no morals and just cold hard facts when what we need instead is a manipulation of the facts to buttress what we define as morality. Your second article has a misleading title. In fact it concludes with this paragraph:
I plan to fully educate my boys once they start becoming sexually aware. I will pass on all of the information that I received when I went through HIV/STD training during my stint as a drug abuse counselor, will give them information about every contraceptive that is available and practical at the time, and will admonish them to wrap that rascal every time they have sex out of the confines of a safe, long term, monogamous relationship. Anything else would be so irresponsible that it should be criminal. I will definitely pass on my belief that sex should be something special between two people that love each other deeply and that they should not take that step lightly. I will also pass on the importance of behaving in a manner that will not get them killed.
I always find this crisis confusing. I went to a private school and got no sex education at all, except what a 10th grade bio teacher and a 7th grade history teacher managed to sneak in on the side. I'm a pretty smart guy, but how can it be that I had a better education about sex from middle school gossip and evening sitcoms than kids can now get in a public school sex ed curriculum?
