STACEY SHEPARD: A pregnancy prevention education predicament
For all the talk about the complex factors that play into Kern County's sky-high teen birthrate, there's a very basic step we can take to address the problem: Teach pregnancy prevention in our schools and ensure that the curriculum meets state requirements.
Thought this was already happening? Not necessarily. California requires instruction on HIV prevention in middle school and high school. This instruction must cover abstinence but also the effectiveness of condoms in preventing infection. Pregnancy prevention, however, need not be taught. Schools may opt to teach it, and if they do, it must include instruction on abstinence, contraception and the state's Safe Surrender Law. The state recommends approved curriculum materials but schools can choose their own instruction &discHyphen;materials.
What's resulted is a patchwork of sex ed programs in our schools. Some are taught by teachers, some by outside contractors. Some schools teach only HIV prevention, some also cover pregnancy. Some programs are based on rigorously evaluated curriculums proved to be effective at reducing the destructive consequences of teen sex; others consist of self-designed materials culled from textbooks and websites or, often, compiled by community members. The state does not track which schools opt to teach pregnancy prevention, but it does audit sex ed instruction at a handful of schools each year -- and many are noncompliant with these requirements.
I put out some calls in the past few weeks to find out which schools teach pregnancy prevention. Indeed, a mishmash of sex ed programs -- some clearly out of