Q. How does Arizona teach sex education?
A. Badly.
From the Republic:
Arizona ranks third highest in teen-pregnancy rates, behind Nevada and New Mexico, for girls ages 15 to 19, according to 2005 statistics compiled by the National Campaign Pregnancy Report.
In 2008, 28,084 girls ages 19 and younger were pregnant, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
The context is a survey story about how sex ed is taught in the state.
The figure above is unsurprising, because, unsurprisingly, the state is incredibly backward when it comes to the subject.
Sex ed is held off until high school and then it’s straitjacketed by a parental permission “opt-in” policy, which effectively effectively allows lazy and timid parents to increase their kids’ chances of a ruined life by doing nothing.
States with right-wing governance like to act superior to the heathens in California or New York. So why are we near the top when it comes to teen boffing?
Comments
b.a. Tuesday, April 13, 2010:
For one thing it's a myth that we have right wing governance. We just had a liberal democrat governor since 2002 who was re-elected in a landslide...and now we have a barely right of center one who wasn't even voted in. The largest city, Phoenix, has a liberal democrat mayor in Phil Gordon. If we had true conservatism in place we wouldn't be contemplating nanny state laws like "ban texting" or absurdly stringent DUI policies. AZ is a state that barely leans republican and in many of the "wrong" ways(mormons etc)...with the major metro areas leaning far to the left with a mix of "Stuff White People Like" styled yuppies, and small Hispanic families of 12.
I would say that if the teen pregnancy numbers were broken down by race then the large Hispanic population would be a huge factor. It's not politically correct, but those are the facts. Hispanic girls have a much higher teen pregnancy rate, which would be obvious to anyone taking a stroll through the Walmart on 36th st and Thomas or your average Food City.
I'm not one of those people who opposes sex education for grade school kids(I attended a private school and even ours started in 5th grade.) I think that's about the right time to begin. I personally think it's just a lack of student discipline, parent discipline and the fact that cultural norms here
are just different. It's the unruliness and lack of imagination of Phoenix kids that leads to teen pregnancy...not lack of sex ed classes. These are either problems of early childhood development or genetically low IQs... which simply manifest themselves later on(in my opinion.) Most of us could tell by the third grade which kids in class were dumb and which were smart...who would turn out to be worthless criminals and who become engineers.
Plus it's hot here with lots of people walking around with not much clothing to remove...people don't have far to go to get naked here. These kids aren't wearing snowpants!