So now middle-schoolers need free birth control too, apparently. We’re systematically dismantling our kids’ capacity for self-control, replacing it with an affirmation of indulgence, and we’re doing so at increasingly younger ages. This is appalling.
public schools
Abstinence Education a Failure? Not So Fast
Social lefties are giddy that a new study is making the rounds which purports to show precisely that, but dig a little deeper, and that conclusion becomes premature. For one thing, the study only looked at four such programs. For another, the report itself includes this caveat:
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“Targeting youth at young ages may not be sufficient. Most Title V, Section 510 abstinence education programs are implemented in upper elementary and middle schools and most are completed before youth enter high school. The findings from this study provide no evidence that abstinence programs implemented at these grades reduce sexual activity of youth during their high school years. However, the findings provide no information on the effects programs might have if they were implemented in high school or began at earlier ages but continued through high school.
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“Peer support for abstinence erodes during adolescence. Peer support for abstinence is a significant predictor of later sexual activity. Although the four abstinence programs had at most a small impact on this measure in the short term and no impact in the long term, this finding suggests that promoting support for abstinence among peer networks should be an important feature of future abstinence programs.”
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It’s obvious that any meaningful effort would have to be “comprehensive” (to use a word the Left loves so much). I would also add that, for the best effect, abstinence education in schools would have to be part of a broader societal effort to take back the culture: reemphasize parenting, condemning sexual saturation in the media, reaffirming that sex has consequences by fighting abortion & free distribution of birth control, not electing moral degenerates President…Meanwhile, Michael Medved has some good insights on sex education & federal funding here.
“Targeting youth at young ages may not be sufficient. Most Title V, Section 510 abstinence education programs are implemented in upper elementary and middle schools and most are completed before youth enter high school. The findings from this study provide no evidence that abstinence programs implemented at these grades reduce sexual activity of youth during their high school years. However, the findings provide no information on the effects programs might have if they were implemented in high school or began at earlier ages but continued through high school.
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“Peer support for abstinence erodes during adolescence. Peer support for abstinence is a significant predictor of later sexual activity. Although the four abstinence programs had at most a small impact on this measure in the short term and no impact in the long term, this finding suggests that promoting support for abstinence among peer networks should be an important feature of future abstinence programs.”
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It’s obvious that any meaningful effort would have to be “comprehensive” (to use a word the Left loves so much). I would also add that, for the best effect, abstinence education in schools would have to be part of a broader societal effort to take back the culture: reemphasize parenting, condemning sexual saturation in the media, reaffirming that sex has consequences by fighting abortion & free distribution of birth control, not electing moral degenerates President…Meanwhile, Michael Medved has some good insights on sex education & federal funding here.
Outrage in New Jersey
A New Jersey high school has sparked outrage by staging a mock school shooting and hostage drama – with right-wing religious fundamentalists as the gunmen.
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In late March, the Burlington Township High School – in an effort to prepare students for a real-life crisis – staged the mock attack, with two police detectives portraying angry Christian men armed with handguns. They entered the school with force, pretended to gun down students in the hallways, then took 10 students hostage and barricaded themselves in the school’s media center.
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The fake gunmen were described as “members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the ‘New Crusaders’ who don’t believe in the separation of church and state.”
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The men were purportedly seeking revenge because the daughter of one of them had been expelled for praying before class.
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Before the exercise, Superintendent Chris Manno said that students and teachers needed “to practice under conditions as real as possible . . . in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they’re as effective as possible,” according to the American Center for Law & Justice.
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I’m suuuure that this was just a random choice, and that the shooters just as easily could have been, say, eco-terrorists, Black Panthers, or disgruntled gays…
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What a blatant display of bigotry! No public school should be inventing such vile associations to any religious group or political school of thought. Why couldn’t the threat have been a hostage-taking fugitive or a generic psychopath?
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In late March, the Burlington Township High School – in an effort to prepare students for a real-life crisis – staged the mock attack, with two police detectives portraying angry Christian men armed with handguns. They entered the school with force, pretended to gun down students in the hallways, then took 10 students hostage and barricaded themselves in the school’s media center.
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The fake gunmen were described as “members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the ‘New Crusaders’ who don’t believe in the separation of church and state.”
–
The men were purportedly seeking revenge because the daughter of one of them had been expelled for praying before class.
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Before the exercise, Superintendent Chris Manno said that students and teachers needed “to practice under conditions as real as possible . . . in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they’re as effective as possible,” according to the American Center for Law & Justice.
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I’m suuuure that this was just a random choice, and that the shooters just as easily could have been, say, eco-terrorists, Black Panthers, or disgruntled gays…
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What a blatant display of bigotry! No public school should be inventing such vile associations to any religious group or political school of thought. Why couldn’t the threat have been a hostage-taking fugitive or a generic psychopath?
Conservative Standards 