Why Texas is flunking sex ed

A commentary about sex ed published on Wednesday, March 04, 2009 by Nancy Daley, a licensed psychologist and a adjunct assistant professor at UT's College of Education. A local contributor's opinions that got me thinking about Texas's teenager birth rates and general knowledge of young adults in our community.

In this editorial, the author addresses the sex education flaws of Texas. I personally believe the audience to be around my age, but looking at the editorial at a different angle it seems to appeal to everyone else in Texas. Let it be conservative or liberal, mostly just to inform the general public.

I understand what the author's argument is about. State government shouldn't have made it an official policy for schools to employ an abstinence-based approach or run the risk of losing federal funding. The author claims that sexual education should be properly done at home since the schools are not necessarily supporting. She believes this could save all these young people from disease, unwanted pregnancy, or other sex-related traumas. The argument does make a lot of sense and it could change quite a few numbers.

I think the author puts up a pretty debatable argument. I agree with many of her viewpoints, especially when she stated immaturity and fear plays a pretty big role in why sex education is not gone over with the parents: "I believe two factors are at work: immaturity and fear" (statesman). Even the thought of role playing with peers may seem a little odd, but it helps. This argument ties into drugs and alcohol a bit because it is also an adult decision problem dealt with young adults. Parents could tell them only the consequences about having sex and to never do it, or inform them both the positives and negatives evenly about these actions. There is one paragraph I don't agree with the author. It is when she states "By taking the trouble to learn about human sexuality and how to teach children about it, parents convey that caring". Either I interpreted that part of the editorial wrong, but I don't like the way she puts so much responsibility and blame on the parents though. Maybe that is just my opinion. In the end, basically inform the children about sex and talk to them as if they are adults, then it will create better results in the long run.