Three Sex Education Lessons from the Teen Pep Stories

One of the oft-repeated comments by characters in my novel, The Sex Ed Chronicles is that, in the absence of sex education, children learn about sex from their friends. However, the novel was based in 1980, before New Jersey high schools started to involve students in peer counseling.

On Valentines Day 2008, I read about a mini-controversy involving peer counseling on a New Jersey radio news Web site. The news coverage came out of one New Jersey high school: Clearview Regional High School in Harrison Township in the southern part of the state. There, parents object to peer counselors, high school juniors and seniors, counseling freshmen on a variety of topics related to sex education. The counseling model comes from a program called Teen Pep. Designed by the Princeton Center for Leadership Training (not affiliated with Princeton University), Teen Pep has been implemented in over 50 Garden State high schools for the past eight years. Therefore, Teen Pep is not a new program and school districts have had time to investigate its merits—only now, one school has made the news.

Teen Pep trains not only students, but also faculty advisors, to work one-to-one, but also as a team in various counseling situations. Schools contracting for Teen Pep work with the Princeton Center for a minimum of two years and there are supervisory field visits by qualified professionals to help ensure the program is running smoothly. A school that engages in Teen Pep makes a considerable intellectual investment, as well as a financial investment, to make it work. Part of this investment is to explain this program to parents.

Which takes me to lesson number one: if you are not ready to take these investments seriously, don’t make them.

As I read about the incident at Clearview High, it became clear to me that the fault is not with the program, but with the school administration. It would have been easier for them to consult parents and clergy from the get-go, as they are supposed to do. I realize that teachers have objected to this—they did back in 1980 as well—but sex education is a subject where parents and clergy believe they have important opinions and knowledge.

I found it interesting to read that an advisory board would be formed after parents objected to individual aspects of the program. That should have been in place from day one.

Which takes me to lesson number two: after consulting parents, decide which topics students are qualified to discuss with peers.

Parental objections at Clearview stemmed from the idea that “kids were teaching kids to have sex.” But there had to be clear differences between the topics teen peer counselors were allowed to teach, and those that had to be covered by a qualified sex education teacher—but they didn’t make it in the press. Parents deserved to know, if they asked before school started. I realize that pro-abstinence organizations also use young speakers; their programs should be subject to the same parental review as the peer-counseling program.

Then I get to lesson number three: make sure you have qualified teachers.

 

The federal No Child Left Behind Act emphasizes a need for qualified teachers, meaning that a teacher should be certified in the subject they teach. That applies as much to sex education as any other subject. In the example of Clearview High, the program leader was an English teacher. When I reached family life education, I learned that sex education instructors were most likely to come from health education, home economics or social studies as well as nursing. I would also assume that guidance counselors could become qualified sex educators; they handle personal student issues as part of their job description.

It appears Teen Pep is working in most schools; only one school is in the news complaining, but those involved with this program should consider offering an alternative: to use degree candidates in counseling and education to counsel students.

This would not be peer counseling, but it would appease parents who worry about kids teaching kids about sex. It would also help provide professional development for sex educators.

Freedom of Religion Sells Abstinence Message, and Saves Sex Ed

During the first week of the New Year, the Austin American Statesmen published an opinion by Ken Lambrecht, president of Texas Planned Parenthood, which cites these statistics:

• Texas is No. 1 in the nation for repeat teen births
• More than 80,000 teenagers in Texas become pregnant every year
• In a 2004 poll, ninety percent of Texans agreed that public schools should educate students with age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education

These statistics come from the state that brought us George W. Bush, the Abstinence President.

On the day after Christmas, USA Today’s main column cited teenage pregnancy statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The column reported that the teen pregnancy rate, which had declined from 1991 to 2005, increased by three percent in 2006. Three percent might not sound like much, but there are over 750,000 children born to teens in the United States, and 8 in 10 of those are unintended, according the Guttmacher Institute, a New York and Washington-based non-profit reproductive health policy research organization.

This is the record of the Abstinence President.

Under his watch, 16 states have refused to accept federal funding for abstinence-until-marriage sex education programs in their public schools.

I happen to live in one of those states: New Jersey. The Garden State is always the butt of mob-boss and exit jokes, but it is also a national leader in comprehensive sex education policies. Our state was the first to mandate age-appropriate, medically accurate, sex education in all grades—28 years ago! We have gone slightly backward, policy-wise; stress-abstinence has been the law since 1999. However, rejecting abstinence-until-marriage funding was a step in the right direction.

I’m also a Sopranos fan, and as a long-time Jersey resident, I look for landmarks of my youth on the show. I’m addicted to the re-runs In one of the first episodes, mob boss Tony Soprano sounds like the best spokesperson for abstinence-only, or abstinence-until-marriage while lecturing his son and daughter at the breakfast counter.

Tony sums up sex education at home in one line: Out there, it’s the 1990’s, in here, it’s 1954.

I’d love to have heard Tony discuss birds and bees with his kids; it would have been the most awkward moment of his life. It might have caused another panic attack.

Not that Tony set the best example, but he wanted his daughter to turn out better than he did.

That’s one of the major reasons parents, as opposed to clergy and politicians, support abstinence programs. They want their kids to avoid their mistakes—and they want the church and the schools to take them off the hook.

So, I’d like to propose a better way for abstinence advocates to carry their banner.

 

The Bush Administration budgeted $50 million for abstinence-until-marriage for 2007, and the same for 2008. This is the money that goes to the state governments, as opposed to faith-based, or pro-life non-profit groups who carry out the same message.

Why not take that money, and the dollars given to faith-based organizations, and use it to celebrate religious freedom?

Every faith needs a congregation, and we should all, as a nation, be opposed to hate crimes against faith.

The abstinence advocates would see better results, while public schools would be free to deliver the sex education their community needs or wants.

Here’s why: while it’s very easy for political advocates make health-related arguments for abstinence money, they’re not very effective at carrying the message to a teen audience. Nor are they effective at getting public institutions to do it. Public school sex educators can effectively convey that abstinence is a choice, and tell students to respect choice. However, it’s unrealistic to make it their job to take a position. High schools listen to teachers who get them to question and think; the stern lecture never works.

The clergy do a better job of delivering the abstinence message, and providing abstinence counseling. Every religion has its own customs and rules, and some are taken quite seriously by the devout.

Almost everything I’ve read in favor of abstinence-only education shows that it works within faith, because clergy, unlike public school teachers, have the luxury of taking a position; they have written works and religious scholars to back them up. Clergy also enjoy more loyalty, and probably more respect in most communities, than public school teachers do.

That’s not meant to be an insult to teachers, but there is a reason we have a presidency that has put forth faith-based programs and No Child Left Behind: America gave it the votes.

Americans take pride in living in a free and diverse nation; freedom of worship is most sacred . I don’t believe anyone, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, would disagree.

We don’t need the federal government to impose religious based values on public schools and services.

However, we need the federal government to protect the freedoms we enjoy.

Tales from the True History of Sex Education in New Jersey

The day after New Year’s, I got a call from Susan Wilson, a former member of New Jersey’s state board of education and former executive director of the Family Life Education Network (now called Answer), based at Rutgers, my alma mater.

While I wrote The Sex Ed Chronicles as a work of historical fiction, Susan Wilson made the true history of sex education in the Garden State; she has helped shape public policy and programs for sex education for 30 years. The day after we spoke, I received a Rutgers publication: The Struggle for Sex Education in New Jersey, 1979-2003: Policy, Persistence and Progress, as well as the two most recent issues of Sex, etc., a teen-focused magazine. Susan told me that she wanted to read my book; it was only right that I read this material as soon as I received it.

Sex education enjoyed popular public support in New Jersey. A September, 1980 Rutgers Eagleton Poll found that 78 percent of respondents thought that sex education should be taught in junior and senior high schools—and, most important, the proposed legislation had the backing of the New Jersey Catholic Conference. The Catholic bishops agreed to support the legislation provided parents and religious leaders would be full-partners with the schools in local sex education programs.

However, the state teacher’s union and school boards association opposed parental involvement in sex education at the school district level, as well as the idea of an unfunded mandate. They, along with concerned parents and right-to-life groups, succeeded in delaying full-implementation of sex education programs in all school districts until 1983. The most important organization involved with implementation was the Network for Family Life Education. Susan Wilson was the Network’s second executive director; she ran it for 23 years.

Starting with only in-kind office space, and no money, the Network for Family Life Education successfully raised funds to assist school districts with implementation from numerous sources. These included 1,200-member speaker’s bureau and a partnership with the Washington-based Children’s Defense Fund for posters and $1 million in free billboard space.

The Network also played a major role in defeating “stress-abstinence” legislation for 22 years. While the 1980 legislation was re-authorized twice, in 1985 and 1990, bills to “stress abstinence” fell to opposition in the state senate in 1989 and to governor’s veto in 1993. By 1993, the state’s school board and teacher’s union had joined with the Network to oppose “stress abstinence” while the Catholic Conference had gone on the record in favor.

However, “stress abstinence” policy passed the legislature; it was signed into law in 2003, an election year for the state assembly. There was a footnote in the material Susan Wilson passed on to me that might explain why “stress abstinence” became law; it highlighted that formerly moderate New Jersey Republicans had shifted to the right in order to head off challenges from conservative opponents in their primaries. This included votes for a “stress-abstinence” policy.

While “stress abstinence” is currently the law in New Jersey, the state’s department of health and education recommended that, certain aspects of sex education be shifted to lower grades. They recommended, for example, that puberty be discussed in the 4^th grade, instead of the sixth, abstinence and sexual feelings be taught in the 6^th grade instead of the eighth and sexual orientation be taught in the 8^th grade instead of the 12^th.

More impressive than these policy changes is the growth of Sex etc as a resource; circulation of the magazine reached 2.2 million by 2003, and there’s been Web-based content at sexetc.org for ten years. The print and online content is written by teens for teens, though professionals handle the tougher questions.

Most interesting, content is balanced; not every writer made the same choices in their sexual relations. The content disputes conservative thought that comprehensive sex education is a “liberal” issue; everyone received complete, medically accurate, information to make his or her own decisions, including abstinence.

It’s not impossible, after reading an issue of Sex etc, to believe that teens could learn as much as they want about sex, and then elect to abstain. That’s their choice.

I could only wish that the New Jersey legislature agreed.

It’s possible “stress abstinence” could be over-turned in New Jersey, as Democrats control majorities in the state assembly and senate, and occupy the governor’s office. In 2006, Governor Jon Corzine turned down federal funds for abstinence-only education; he was one of the first governors to do so.

However, while there may be enough support for repeal, this may not be the right time. New Jersey faces a $3 billion deficit and the governor has proposed an ambitious, but politically unpopular recovery plan: to boost highway tolls every five years. I doubt the governor would take on additional political headaches from conservative opposition, so I would expect “stress abstinence” to stay on the books for at least another year.

New Jersey is often a butt of jokes about corruption and pollution, but the Garden State has some of the most progressive sex education policies in the country.

For that, we have to thank Susan Wilson and the Network for Family Life Education.

Age of Consent Laws: A Pandora’s Box?

The Christian Civil League of Maine has asked Maine’s attorney general to investigate “possible criminal activity” at Portland’s King Middle School, as result of a decision by a 7-2 vote of the Portland school board to allow distribution of contraceptives through the school’s health center. The group pointed to a Maine law that makes sexual intercourse between two persons legal only if both partners are at least 14 and the age difference is no more than five years.

The League has made no accusations, nor have they asked the school board to reconsider their decision, but their request for the attorney general to investigate is a more effective tactic. The wife of Maine’s attorney general, G. Stephen Rowe is the head nurse of the Portland public school system. I can only guess that by embarrassing husband and wife, the league will get what they want: a reversal of the school board’s decision, reporting of underage sexual activity to the state’s department of health and human services, and stricter enforcement of age of consent laws.

They should be careful what they wish for.  Strict enforcement of these laws can affect not only the children who engaged in coitus, but also their parents as well as public health providers.

The first issue is to figure out a fair punishment for the crime. A society that is serious about enforcement must decide the appropriate punishment and how offenders, and possibly their parents, would be “reformed.” The public health providers face no such problems; non-compliance could be punishable through fines, suspensions, loss of a professional license, or termination.

I do not believe for one second that even the most heartened conservatives want to send 11 to 13 year-old children to jail for engaging in a consensual act; that would also take children out of school for no reason. They are also too young to work, so a fine is out of the question—unless the fine is imposed on their parents.  Maine is one of 12 states that refused federal funds for abstinence-until-marriage sex education, so I doubt that re-education is a realistic option.

A literal interpretation of consent laws could result in parents being cited as aiding and abetting if they do not inform their local gendarmes or public health authorities of the illegal act.  I do not know a single parent who would want to be in that position; how would they prove they did not know about a sexual relationship?

Public health providers would be required to refuse to provide contraceptives to youngsters to avoid an accusation of aiding and abetting illegal sexual intercourse—even when the attending physician or nurse has proof of written parental consent. They must ask their kin how this will hold up against their professional beliefs, including the Hippocratic Oath, when they are faced with an underage pregnant woman in need or a young man or woman who has contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

Most important, the law must define sex, and a broad public must be empowered to define it. I have no doubt that the Christian Civil League, and similar groups, will want a say in that decision. Just as the consent laws vary from state to state, so do definitions of consensual sexual activity. Do we want to ask teenagers to offer graphic descriptions in court, to be tried by juries of adults, and subject to testimony of “experts” the very same zealots who would take political advantage of the situation? 

Today, such questions are more worthy of playwrights than politicians.

I only hope the Christian Civil League of Maine considers the answers very carefully.

The Abstinence Teacher Gets an A in My Grade Book

Tom Perrotta and I have two things in common: New Jersey roots and novels about sex education; his latest work, The Abstinence Teacher is the only other novel, besides my own, The Sex Ed Chronicles, that I have read which covers a subject that is still considered taboo in some social circles.

The Abstinence Teacher has two main characters: Ruth Ramsey, a divorcee’ and high school sex educator who makes one inappropriate comment too many, drawing the ire of the evangelical Tabernacle church and its’ hell for leather Pastor Dennis, and Tim Mason, a former stoner and rock n’ roller, also divorced, turned born-again Christian and doting soccer dad. Tim is struggling to stay along the straight and narrow path, as defined for him by the very same evangelical leader who torments Ruth.

The descriptions of Ruth and Tim’s mental conflicts are fascinating. They are both searching for self-worth through someone else.  Since their divorces, Ruth and Tim’s lives have taken divergent paths, but each believes that they have lost something that one might call faith. They are both close-minded, though Tim’s close-mindedness is manufactured from his relationship with the Tabernacle. It was interesting that Tim likened the fellowship of the Tabernacle to the camaraderie of the rock bands of his youth; both are closed circles that welcome loners who are taught to pity or look down on others who don’t fit in. 

Tim has tried to embrace a Christian life, though his sexual desires for his ex-wife and unhappiness in his second marriage lead him to doubt his piety. Tim repeatedly returns to Pastor Dennis to reconcile his adopted faith. Tim and Carrie, his second wife, try to find sexual bliss under a church-defined set of rules; the rules for shopping, for instance, try to draw a fine line between naughty and nice.

Ruth has lived professionally by the mantra that “pleasure is good, shame is bad and knowledge is power,” however she doubts that her students are listening to her more medically accurate, age appropriate messages. In her private moments, she doubts her own sexuality, wondering if love, or just plain good sex, will elude her for the rest of her life. Her desperation reaches new heights as she seeks an old high school flame through the ‘Net.

Ruth and Tim’s paths cross at a soccer game where Tim has asked his team, including Ruth’s daughter Maggie, to join in prayer after a victory. Ruth objects, drawing further wrath from the Tabernacle faithful. Her first clash led her principal and superintendent to institute an abstinence-only sex education course that she lacks the heart to teach. Her second compromises her relationships with her two daughters: Maggie, who wants to continue to play soccer for Tim, and Eliza who uses her mother’s objections to public prayer as a means to consider evangelical fellowship for herself.

Unlike my work, The Sex Ed Chronicles, which takes place in 1980, a time before sex education had been adopted in many public schools; Teacher is based in our times. In Chronicles, I was guided by the history and politics of the late 1970’s. Teacher devotes more attention to the culture of fundamentalist Christianity than the art, science and politics of teaching sex education in public schools. In Teacher, sex education is a regular part of the school day.

 In reading Teacher and Chronicles back to back, I noticed similarities.  Both novels position sex educators under the belief that knowledge is power and show that sex education is too important and too difficult a subject to teach poorly in the classroom. I made the same point as an observing news reporter as Perrotta makes by getting inside Ruth Ramsey’s head. In Teacher and Chronicles, the teachers are also asked to swallow some pride. I will only say that Ruth is asked to swallow harder.

Chronicles and Teacher share concerns about abstinence-only sex education being something that is watered down and therefore, not taking too seriously—unless it is consistent with the teachings of their family or place of worship. However, sex education outside of the public schools is less consistent from student to student, than inside the classroom—and both sides of the culture wars acknowledge this point.

Then the academic questions that come from reading Teacher and Chronicles are who provides the views that will dominate, and not demonize, public school sex education? Which minority view will take center stage in a theatre where parents and students are a silent majority? Will it be activist conservatives (they are not all Christians; Orthodox Jews and Muslims share deep seeded objections to comprehensive sex education) or activist educators perceived to be liberal, or is it more appropriate to say, sexually liberated?

And, do students and school administrators really care about the material taught in those classes? There is evidence in Teacher and Chronicles that administrators care mainly about staying out of trouble that comes in the forms of negative press and parental pressures and, that most students will “learn” whatever their school system decides to put in front of them.

 The Abstinence Teacher made me more concerned for the professional well-being and skin thickness of sex educators who work in settings similar to Ruth. A teacher cannot teach well when forced to suppress their own values to protect faculty colleagues from embarrassment.   I likened Ruth Ramsey’s job to managing the late shift at the 24-hour convenience mart, a no-win scenario whenever you lose your cool in head-to-head or eye-to-eye combat.

For this reason, as well as Perrotta’s humorous and insightful scenes of sex re-education in our times, The Abstinence Teacher gets high marks in my grade book.

Sex Education Once Considered “Communist Plot”

Going back to 1980 to write The Sex Ed Chronicles required me to return to the 60’s and 70’s to get the political setting just right. Until I started my research, I did not know that sex education had been considered part of a ‘Communist plot’. 

In 1960, John Birch Society president Robert Welch urged parents to join their local Parent-Teacher Associations and take them over. According to a Time magazine reporter in 1969, Welch had “decided that sex education was a ‘Communist plot’ akin to community fluoridation plans.”

As part of my research, I read a National Education Association (NEA) manual, published in 1970, advising state and local teachers unions on how to confront extremists opposed to sex education in the public schools. The manual referred to a documentary supported by the Society called ‘The Innocents Defiled’ which put sex education instructors in an unflattering light, saying that they were spreading “moral depravity” and that they were “bent on the corruption of America’s youth, with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the United States.”

The John Birch Society also formed a front group called the Movement to Restore Decency (MOTOREDE) to attract non-members to their cause. The NEA manual mentioned an irony: the Society emulated the Communist party, their sworn enemy, by forming a front to hide their true motives.  This movement did succeed in attracting its own base: according to author and sociologist Janice Irvine, 80 to 90 percent of MOTOREDE members were not John Birchers. MOTOREDE was not the only organization of its kind; others were parents’ organizations with names such as Sanity of Sex (S.O.S.) and Parents against Universal Sex Education (PAUSE).

While opinion polls of the time showed overwhelming (71 percent) support for sex education, and sex education was endorsed by not only the NEA, but also the National Council of Churches, the American Medical Association and the U.S. Catholic Conference, vocal conservative opposition led legislators to reconsider sex education, or gave their political kin ammunition to fight it. Organizations opposed to sex education in public schools existed in 35 states in 1969.

One politician, for example, the late California State Senator John Schmitz, introduced the Sex Education Act of 1969 in the Golden State. While innocently named, this legislation required an ‘opt-in’, meaning that any sex education program required 100 percent parental approval before it could be taught in a public school. Schmitz’ legislation also called for dismissal and revocation of teaching credentials for any instructor who taught an unapproved class. Three years later, elected as a Congressman from Orange County, Schmitz became the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, attracting over a million votes.

Aside from linkages to Communism and liberal ideology, opposing arguments against sex education were similar to today: classes are too explicit or specific; they are taught too early; or, abstinence should be stressed over contraception.

However, during the 60’s, the organized opposition was also linked to causes that had become, or were about to become unpopular. Parents could be opposed to sex education, but also opposed to, as examples, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism or the Vietnam War. As a result, single-issue groups strictly opposed to sex education were more effective than broad coalitions.

Today’s opposition to sex education is more sophisticated; conservative Republicans have done a much better job of being more inclusive and grass roots; they are embarrassed when they are seen on the side of any organized group that preaches segregation or discrimination, or shown as hypocrites when they take moral actions contrary to their political views.

Sex education advocates are also more sophisticated; they are better focused on the health and medical reasons for comprehensive sex education, and less disposed to label their opposition as fanatics. There were quick dismissals along this tone during the 60’s; they kept their opposition alive—and possibly legitimized them with voters.

A major problem was that sex educators had looked at their cause as a liberal one; that was a mistake in appealing states with sizable conservative voting blocs and activist conservative legislators. Neither conservatives nor liberals want their opponent’s views legislated on them, even when they are in the minority.

Today, people of all views are more accepting towards sex education. We do see legislatures with ‘abstinence-only’ and ‘abstinence until marriage’ positions as well as ‘opt-in’ policies—but sex education is not going away. Advocates need to do a better job of convincing voters that comprehensive sex education is not a liberal issue, but a health and medical one, as well as an opportunity to deter predatory acts and child abuse.

Today, we see a presidency that prefers to fund ‘abstinence until marriage’ programs, although some governors courageously refused to pursue the money this time around, as the requirements became too extreme—to educate ‘abstinence until marriage’ through the age of 29. However, the next presidency will promise a more moderate position—or leave the funding issues to the states.