Here Are 4 Examples of How Bad Public School Sex Education Has Become for US Families
One of parents’ most important duties is to protect their children from harmful sexual values and behaviors. Yet many public schools force young children to sit through harmful, sometimes shocking and explicit sex-education classes.
Most of the time, parents have little control over the content of these classes. Occasionally, a group of parents finds out about a horrifying sex-education class and protests to the arrogant or disrespectful principal or local school board.
The class may be dropped, only to be replaced by another class that teaches equally obnoxious sex-ed material to elementary-school children.
School authorities’ cavalier attitude toward parents on this issue shows their anti-parent bias and their contempt for parents’ rights to control the values their children are taught.
Many school authorities insist that children need comprehensive sex education from kindergarten through high school. They think that parents can’t be trusted because they have shameful feelings about sex or “outdated” moral or sexual values.
They claim they know best regarding sex education and usurp parents’ role, purportedly for the “good of the children.”
In doing so, they show their utter contempt for parents’ rights, values, and common sense.
Many sex-education classes indoctrinate children with sexual values that can cause them irreparable harm. For example, these classes often promote the idea that most sexual behaviors are acceptable, including adultery, homosexuality, masturbation and premarital sex.
The sex-education instructor simply tells the kids to “be careful” or use their “common sense” when they engage in these behaviors — as if we can depend on teenagers with raging hormones to be careful or use their common sense.
The soaring teen pregnancy rate in this country puts the lie to this notion.
Horror stories about sex-education classes and flagrant violations of parents’ rights confront us from around the country. Here are only four of those stories:
1. A public school in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, made 59 sixth-grade girls submit to a genital examination as part of a routine physical. The school did not ask for parental consent. During the exam, school officials blocked the exit doors and refused to let the crying and pleading young girls call their parents.
2. In Stephens County, Georgia, parents were shocked to discover that their 14- and 15-year-old daughters had been driven to a birth control clinic by a public school staff member without their knowledge. The county clinic administered AIDS tests and Pap smears to the girls and gave them birth control pills and condoms. The school denied parents access to the test results and defended its actions on the grounds that the counselor believed that she was doing what was best for the girls.
3. The Pacific Justice Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of California parents against the Novato Unified School District for authorizing pro-homosexual presentations without any prior notice or consent. According to the institute, “The presentations entitled ‘Cootie Shots,’ exposed elementary school children as young as seven years old with skits containing gay and lesbian overtures. The presentations were followed by question and answer sessions about what constitutes ‘normal’ families and acceptance of those who choose the homosexual lifestyle.”
4. Carol (last name withheld for privacy), a schoolteacher, couldn’t believe what she was being asked to teach in her sex-education class. The curriculum forced her to show second-graders pictures of nude boys and girls and ask them to name body parts. School authorities told Carol and her fellow elementary school teachers that there were no absolute moral rules, so she shouldn’t be concerned about what she had to teach the children.
Why are public schools allowed to get away with these sex-ed crimes against parents and young children? Because states compel parents to send their children to these schools through compulsory-attendance laws. These schools also can’t “go out of business” because they are supported by tax money, and incompetent teachers are almost impossible to fire because of union-negotiated tenure policies.
Parents, you should ask your children if their school forces them to sit through sex-education classes, and what the school teaches in these classes.
If the public school forces your children to sit through shocking, obnoxious or embarrassing sex-education classes, you can do something about it. Many states have Parent Notification laws that allow you to demand that the school withdraw your children from these classes.
You should also think about alternative education options, such as private schools and homeschooling.
Joel Turtel is an education policy analyst and author of “Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children,” “The Welfare State: No Mercy For The Middle Class” and “Patriot Stories.”
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
