The Daily Texan
By Matt Stephens
State Reps. Michael Villarreal and Joaquin Castro, Democrats from San Antonio, discussed their bills Tuesday to alter the sex education curriculum in Texas public schools.
Villarreal’s bill would ensure that all information presented in schools is scientifically and medically accurate, while Castro’s bill aims to include information on contraceptives and birth control in the state’s curriculum.
“We want to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the number of teen pregnancies by providing [students] with scientifically accurate information,” Villarreal said. “If students are going to be sexually active, you can’t discourage them from using contraception.”
Texas ranks third in the nation in number of unwanted pregnancies and first in multiple unwanted pregnancies from the same teen, according to the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based watchdog group that supports a curriculum change.
David Wiley, a professor of health education at Texas State University and co-author of a recent study by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund on sexuality education programs in Texas schools, supported the bills at the meeting.
Wiley’s study covered more than 900 school districts in the state and found that roughly 96 percent of children in the public school system receive no sex education or abstinence-only education.
The study also found that “a growing body of evidence indicates that abstinence-only programs are ineffective in changing teen sexual behavior.”
“This is an adult problem,” Wiley said. “And adults have failed kids.”
The meeting was held before a hearing of the House Committee on Public Education, which will consider the bills before they return to the House of Representatives. The last sex education curriculum change was made in 1995, cementing an abstinence-only curriculum for the state, said Kathy Miller, president of Texas Freedom Network.
“I’m a parent of a 15-year-old, and I can tell you that it doesn’t matter about community,” Miller said. “Adolescents like to turn their parents off. I just hope there are adults in the school who are reinforcing what I’m saying.”
The bills include an option for parents to opt out of the curriculum if they do not want their children exposed to the information.
Lori Devillez, executive director of the Austin Pregnancy Resource Center, has been working at crisis pregnancy centers for 20 years. Devillez said she believes teaching abstinence is the only way students should learn about sex.
“That’s the correct message students need to hear,” Devillez said. “If we go beyond that, then they get a mixed message.”
Even if the bills successfully reduced teen pregnancies, Devillez said she would not support them. She said that when the center was receiving abstinence-only funding, it saw an accompanying reduction in the number of teen pregnancies.
Devillez said other methods of abstinence should be included in sex education curriculum as well.
“We can teach them boundary settings and refusal skills so that they can make a healthy choice,” Devillez said. “We tell girls that they can say ‘no,’ and they look at us like they have never heard that before.”