Sunday, Aug. 9, 2015 | 2 a.m.
The Clark County School District is in hot water for its sex-education curriculum, which has been criticized for excluding gay and transgender students.
But beyond issues of inclusion, could the lessons be inaccurate too?
Is Clark County alone in teaching such information?
As it turns out, no.
“It’s not just in Clark County,” New York University researcher Jonathan Zimmerman said. “It has been shown that many (sex-education) curricula teach things that have been shown to be untrue. It’s fair to say the curricula that contain the most inaccuracies are inspired by the abstinence-only movement.”
Zimmerman said research hasn’t proved whether attending sex-education classes in junior high and high school makes a difference in preventing sexually transmitted diseases later in life. Regardless, he said, schools have a responsibility to provide students with accurate information.
“The reason they shouldn’t teach those things is not because they are going to affect kids’ behavior,” he said. “The reason we shouldn’t teach that is because the things they identified are not true.”
District officials said a group of health teachers convened in June and decided some of the materials mentioned in the ACLU memo would be retired. That includes Pam Stenzel’s video and the rest of the materials mentioned above.
“We review materials periodically anyway, and it was time to do so,” said Mary Pike, the district’s health and science curriculum director.
Said Tod Story: “We welcome (the district’s) review, but we remain concerned that much more material is in need of review. Our memo to CCSD highlighted only a small sample of misleading materials we discovered approved for use in the current archaic curriculum.”
The answer to that question is more difficult to determine, because anyone who wants to review the health textbooks and sex-education materials students used must get permission from the district.
The Nevada American Civil Liberties Union got that permission this year and examined a host of classroom materials. It detailed its findings in a memo sent to the district in May.
“What we have seen is horribly inaccurate in so many ways,” said Tod Story, director of the Nevada ACLU. “It’s not inclusive of all students, it excludes LGBT students, there are religious overtones and things that shouldn’t even be part of the conversation.”
Here are a few examples of what the ACLU found being taught in Clark County schools.
• Intrauterine devices are “(a) method of birth control considered unsafe for young girls and many women.”
ACLU's rebuttal: Both Planned Parenthood and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services say IUDs — small T-shaped devices inserted into the uterus — are safe for most women. They also are one of the most effective forms of contraception.
• “Contract chlamydia one time in your lifetime, cured or not, and there’s about a 25 percent chance you’ll be sterile for the rest of your life. Get it twice, it jumps to 50 percent.”
ACLU's rebuttal: That statement comes from Pam Stenzel, a speaker who travels to schools across the country advocating for abstinence. She said this in a speech called “Sex Still Has a Price Tag” recorded in 2006. The video frequently is shown to local students in sex-education classes.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says only 10 to 15 percent of women with untreated chlamydia are at risk of becoming infertile.
• “Condoms aren’t much good against the most common sexually transmitted infection.”
ACLU's rebuttal: This comes from a video called “Sex is Not a Game,” produced by the abstinence-focused Medical Institute for Sexual Health. The $15 DVD is one of many sold by the organization, which has received federal funding from Republicans to promote abstinence. The group is a staunch critic of teaching students about condoms, which it believes are unreliable.
The CDC website states “consistent and correct use of latex condoms reduces the risk for many STDs that are transmitted by genital fluids (STDs such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis).”
• “Girls, if you have sex, you will get a bad reputation. If you have a reputation for having sex, it will lead to predators looking for you. If you have sex and you are a boy, then you are looked at as a cool person.”
ACLU's rebuttal: This comes from “Real People — Abstinence: Choosing to Wait,” a 23-minute video produced by Sunburst Visual Media. Local schools pay $130 for each DVD.
The ACLU says such messages reinforce hypocritical and unfair gender stereotypes and shouldn’t be taught to young people.
• “If you have sex outside of one, permanent, monogamous (relationship) … you will pay. No one has ever had more than one partner and not paid.”
ACLU's rebuttal: This is another statement made by Stenzel in her 2006 video.
Critics have attacked her for using scare tactics to discourage teens from having sex rather than teaching them useful information. Millions of people have had multiple sexual partners in their lives and have not suffered a terrible disease.
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