Sex Ed Subtracts from Subjects like Math

America’s test scores are falling like a brick, Terry Jeffrey writes in a new CNSNews.com column. According to the latest National Assessments, a whopping 65 percent of eighth graders weren’t proficient in reading in 2017, and another 67 percent weren’t competent in math. But does that honestly surprise anyone, considering what our kids are really studying in school? Maybe if we put as much emphasis on reading as we put on sex, students might actually learn something!Just last week, parents in Albemarle County, Virginia were furious to hear that their ninth graders were watching a sexual how-to video that would have qualified as adult entertainment. The P.E. teacher responsible, Frank Lawson, was put on administrative leave once school officials learned that a group of 14-year-old girls had been exposed to a Laci Green lesson. Green, who calls herself a “sex educator,” is a proud partner of Planned Parenthood who mocks abstinence and spends most minutes of her instruction covering topics that most grown-ups would find disgusting. (If you want to know exactly how graphic Green’s content is, check out LifeSite news’s coverage. But, brace yourself.)

When girls told their parents what they’d seen, a firestorm erupted across the town. Local news outlets streamed into Western Albemarle High School, trying to determine who was responsible. Principal Darah Bonham told NBC29 that the video hadn’t been screened. “What we did not do was vet that [material] as we should have. We just assumed that what was provided was the same” as past lessons, she said. “I’m embarrassed that this occurred,” she went on. “I’m upset about it and I know it’s been the same way for our kids and for our families.”

Kate Acuff, chairwoman of the Albemarle County School Board sent an email to families in the district, insisting the video “was highly offensive, entirely inappropriate for a student audience” and promised that school administrators had called each family on April 13 to apologize for its use. “The video was not previously screened by the school, which was a violation of our standard practice.” Unfortunately for the district, the damage had already been done. And while the apology was the right response, it may not be enough. Attorneys at Liberty Counsel say Albemarle may be in more hot water, since this kind of perversity “could be considered ‘predatory grooming'” under state law.

“The law is clear that parents, not agents of the state like teachers, and not outside radical groups, have the right to direct the upbringing and associations of their children,” Liberty Counsel lawyers argued. A local agency replied that the lesson on various sex acts was part of its “bystander intervention curriculum” but won’t be used anymore. That’s a positive first step, but a better one would have been to not partner with extremists like Green and Planned Parenthood to begin with. Let’s hope more school districts get the message parents have been trying to send with protests like the Sex Ed Sit Out: stick to educating and leave the child-rearing to us! If your children are in the public schools, make sure you know what they’re being taught, who’s doing the teaching, and what organizations produced the curriculum.

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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