Sex Education: Does It Really Work?

'Forty percent of today's fourteen year old girls will become pregnant by the time they are nineteen' (qtd. in 'The Effects' 632). This statistic may indicate that the sex education programs in the United States are not controlling the effects of sex by teens. 'The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of developed countries' ('The Effects' 632). I believe that the people of this nation need to look at the current sex education programs and see if they are properly addressing the problems that sex education was intended to stop. The three major reasons why sex education is taught in our schools are: 1) to discourage teens from having sex at younger and younger ages; 2) to stop the spread of AIDS and other STDs; and 3) to prevent teenage pregnancy. I believe that the sex education programs being used today are not effective at controlling these three problems.

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Sex Education Portfolio, 3

Today's sex education programs are abstinence based. 'Washington has spent some $31.7 million developing abstinence only curricula' (Shapiro 56). By looking at the problems sex education tries to solve, we can improve the sex education programs by putting the problems in order of importance. This will prove that teens having sex at a younger age is the reason for the failure of sex education in this country. To counteract this problem abstinence should be taught to children under the age of 16. Then when the children reach the age of 16 they need to be taught AIDS and condom education.

AIDS and other STDs are an important reason we have sex education. AIDS education is supported in all fifty states: 'Sex education is only formally required or recommended in 47 states' (Gibbs 61). This shows that AIDS education is considered

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more important than sex education. AIDS...