Word: public
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...decided to delve a bit more deeply into this minefield, and explore the whys and wherefores of the storm surrounding sex education. The original analysis grew out of two recent studies by the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the Kaiser Family Foundation, which reported that fully one third of American public school districts follow an abstinence-only curriculum in their sex education classes. We wondered if abstinence education was working, and suggested that perhaps such an approach was unrealistic in light of what we know about sexual behavior among teens. And people let us know exactly what they thought, no holds...
...acknowledge the power of the human sex drive and provide young people with ways of dealing with peer pressure and dating in order to remain abstinent. The decidedly non-secular foundation of some of these chastity-based programs, however, render them irrelevant to the debate over sex education in public schools; initiatives like the Southern Baptists' popular "True Love Waits" have strong religious undertones, and their success seems largely dependent upon participants' religious conviction. These types of abstinence programs should be - and are - made available in churches, or at home. Requirements for the separation of church and state, of course...
...number of disgusted parents also wrote in, wondering why sex education needs to be taught in schools at all. While a great deal of debate remains over what kind of sex education should be included in an average public school student's day, mounting evidence shows that information should be made available to young people - outside of the home. The fact remains that many teens don't get ANY straight facts about sex at home. For example, rates of pregnancy among Hispanic teens have been slower to drop than among other population groups. This week, the National Campaign to Prevent...
...young people who have no other source of reliable information about sexuality - and even for many of those who do - the public schools remain a primary source of facts about sex, contraception and abstinence. And given that two thirds of American public schools do teach a combination of abstinence and sex education, and that rates of teen pregnancy have reached their lowest point in two decades, it may be possible to draw the preliminary conclusion that the combination curriculum is working. Of course, as any statistician or social scientist will tell you, it's always dangerous to draw conclusions from...
...then, at 9 p.m., City Manager Robert W. Healy, Police Commissioner Ronnie Watson and leading officials from Cambridge's water, health, school, emergency management, police and fire departments will gather at the Department of Public Works' conference room at 147 Hampshire...