Sex Education in American Schools Essay - 3375 Words

Every year in America, one million teen girls become pregnant and at least three million teens become infected with an STD (Donovan, 1). Though these numbers slightly fluctuate, problems facing American adolescents today, like HIV/AIDS, other STD’s, and teen pregnancy. This means that some needs to change. These problems will decline when sex education is revamped everywhere in America, by making the curriculum completely comprehensive in addressing problems facing adolescents today such as teen pregnancy, STD’s, rape, pressures and emotions dealing with sex, and give teens good communication skills. Right now teachers approach these subjects on their tip toes, dance around the issue, and not fully give out all the information.†¦show more content†¦Sometimes abstinence-based education can be very comprehensive, but in some conservative areas, it can be almost considered abstinence-only curriculum. Majority of the time abstinence-based curriculums, fall sh ort when addressing all the issues (Levine 12-15). To further understand sex issues facing adolescents today; let’s take a general look on what issues are being taught in schools. 69% of schools say there is a policy on sex education. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is a nonprofit organization that is focused on sexual reproductive health research, policy and analysis on public education, studied sex education today and compared it to a decade ago. 23% of schools in 2000 taught abstinence-only education, which was up 2% from 1988. The study also found that classes today are less likely to talk about birth control, abortion, obtaining and using contraception, ad sexual orientation, compared to the late 1980’s (The Alan Guttmacher Institute). The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation put together a survey asking students what was being taught in their sex education class. The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation is a major philanthropy foundation that focuses mainly on major health care issues facing the nation. The survey questione d 1,501 students nationwide and asked them questions concerning several topics. First, they asked what is considered to be â€Å"core elements† of sexShow MoreRelatedAccess to Evidence Based Sex Education in American Public Schools999 Words   |  4 PagesThere is a strong need for greater access to current and evidence-based sex education in American public schools. Concurrent with access to information and education about human sexuality, schools should also be offering students safe, anonymous ways of receiving condoms. Condoms are crucial for preventing unwanted pregnancy: and it can easily be said that all teen pregnancies in the United States will be classified as unwanted. 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