Kansas City schools’ response to teen sex? Just say no

Abstinence-until-marriage programs have come under criticism for teaching fear and fostering ignorance. In the sex issue, on streets now, I describe one curriculum, Choosing the Best, faulted in a 2004 congressional report for understating condoms’ effectiveness.

Approved to receive federal funding, Choosing the Best is taught in many area classrooms, including the Kansas City, Missouri, School District. Kansas City schools teach abstinence in the face of startling teen birth rates for minorities. Fifty-three percent of Latina teen girls and 51 percent of African-American teens will become pregnant at least once before they turn 20, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

District officials defend their decision to use Choosing the Best, which in the past has used a story of a knight, a princess and a village maiden to illustrate purity.

“I think a lot of the message depends on the delivery, and to present information on how to make healthy decisions and choices,” Roger Franks, the district’s abstinence education coordinator, says in an e-mail, declining to elaborate further.

Parents unsure that a story of a slain dragon is sufficient prevention may want to search for a curriculum they can teach at home.