Just last month, this editorial board applauded the Texas education commissioner for recommending a rewrite of the state’s sex education curriculum.
Such a step (one not undertaken since 1998), we said, could help curb an alarming teen pregnancy rate by teaching “facts, not myths meant to scare teenagers from having sex.”
Noble effort. Sadly, the process is going as expected: Four of the seven “content experts” tasked with shaping the curriculum changes seem to have been picked more for ideology than expertise.
They include:
Dr. Mikeal Love, an anti-abortion activist and Austin obstetrician-gynecologist, who refuses to prescribe birth control and has referred to pregnant women as “host organisms.”
Former math and science teacher Feyi Obamehinti, a Republican candidate for the State Board of Education, who supported the defeated 2017 bathroom bill that would have blocked transgender people from using public restrooms that align with gender identity.
Dr. Jack Lesch, a practitioner in The Woodlands, who is on the board of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, an organization that promotes abstinence-only education.
Dawn Riley, who serves as director of mentoring at Hope Choice, an Amarillo crisis pregnancy center that encourages teen girls to “choose a lifestyle of purity” and promises to “uphold the sanctity of human life and never refer for abortion.”
As the majority on the advisory panel, these appointees, who were each chosen by two SBOE members, are in a position to push ultra -conservative dogma into standards that will affect the lives of 5 million Texas public school students. That is not only wrongheaded, it is dangerous.
Texas already has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, with 31 births per 1,000 girls, compared with 20 births nationally. It is first in the country for teens who have given birth more than once.
In 2014, nearly 500 girls who gave birth were between 10 and 14 years old.
Teenagers are also at high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and of being victims of sexual assault.
Facts, not indoctrination, are needed to reverse those troubling trends. Best practices, not political agendas, should be the driving force behind any revisions to standards guiding how sex education is taught in Texas schools.
We owe our children that much. Research shows that comprehensive, fact-based sex education that includes information on contraception and abstinence can help delay teen sex and reduce STDs and teen pregnancy.
Not getting comprehensive education already puts Texas students at a disadvantage. State law requires health education teachers to focus more time on abstinence than any other behavior and to present it as the “preferred choice” for unmarried school-age people.
Individual school districts can go beyond those parameters, but the vast majority don’t. About 80 percent of districts in the state teach abstinence-only or have no sex education at all, according to the Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog of the far-right.
The appointment of advocates with clear abstinence-only and anti-abortion agendas could drive health education standards even further away from practices proven effective.
“This should not be ideological,” said Georgina Pérez, a Democratic member of the State Board of Education. “This should be based on data, facts and research. That’s what we should be presenting to students.”
That seemed to be the point of recommendations issued by TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, who examined a rewrite of the health standards at the request of the state board.
His recommendations, based on input from medical and science experts, included teaching students about reproductive and sexual health in age-appropriate ways as early as kindergarten and reviewing “sexual risk avoidance” by the end of middle school.
“How health education is framed is very important.” Morath’s recommendations say, “Merely teaching health literacy is insufficient to result in behavioral change and positive outcomes.”
Putting politically motivated appointees on an advisory panel runs counter to that goal — and should raise alarm bells for all who care about the well-being of Texas children.
Marty Rowley, a Republican SBOE member, calls such concerns “premature” and notes that the process of revising curriculum standards is lengthy and will include input from as many as 10 working groups and testifiers at a series of public hearings.
Good point, but that process works only if people get involved. There are many opportunities for the public — educators, parents, students and concerned citizens — to speak out and demand that school standards be based on input from experts, not activists.
This is not the first time that some members of the State Board of Education have stacked curriculum advisory panels with ideologues promoting questionable ideas. This time, don’t let them get away with it. Texans, contact your State Board of Education member and have your say.