Local Pro-Family Group's State-Compliant Curriculum Turned Away Again and Again
By Jim Brown
December 12, 2002
(AgapePress) - Philadelphia and other public districts in Pennsylvania are ignoring a state law regarding abstinence education.
A law on the books in Pennsylvania requires that abstinence education be the first intervention when it comes to sex education in all 501 school districts, including Philadelphia. However, the director of the Office of Curriculum Support for the Philadelphia school district, Dr. Catherine Balsley, continues to reject the abstinence-only curriculum of the Urban Family Council -- even though the program is in agreement with state law.
Council executive director William Devlin says his group has met with Balsley repeatedly over the past ten years.
"If you go to the school district of Philadelphia [or] if you go to the school board, they will say [they] teach abstinence. They don't 'teach' abstinence -- they mention abstinence," Devlin says, "then they go right into comprehensive sex education, 'safe sex,' 'safer sex,' 'protected sex' -- whatever is the word de jour that they're using."
Devlin's group also has been before the Human Sexuality AIDS Curriculum Review Committee four times, requesting that its abstinence-only program be sanctioned by the school district. But according to Devlin, the program has been dismissed every time by that committee -- despite an epidemic of chlamydia among female teenagers in the district. [See Earlier Article]
"It's unfortunate because the people who are suffering as a result of the school district of Philadelphia rejecting [our] program have been the teenagers and children themselves, now that it's being reported that there's an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases among young females."
Like the State of New Jersey, Pennsylvania is by law required to teach public school students that abstinence is the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. Devlin says people throughout the state need to pressure the Philadelphia school board and its new CEO Paul Vallas to comply with Pennsylvania law.
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