A State Board of Education meeting got heated when some parents complained about the sex education curriculum in public schools. I am in NO WAY a prude. But, educating your children about sex is none of the schools business. What, when and how you tell your children about sex is one of the most important and personal decisions parents make. Sometimes even parents disagree on timing and content. Arizona uses a curriculum designed by Planned Parenthood that goes too far in the minds of some. It includes transgender education for kindergarten students. Condom races for fourth graders. (They race to see who can put a condom on a banana the fastest.) Discussions about oral and anal sex. How gay sex differs from heterosexual sex. This goes well beyond the biology of procreation and dives head first into the politics and morality of sex. For some parents this may be an appropriate method. But for many it goes way too far. As parents we should have the right to set the moral compass in our home and in our children until they are able to decide for themselves.
Another big issue is that we aren't educating our kids in the core curriculum because we are distracted with things like sex education, anti-bullying and creating good "eco citizens" with things like Earth Day. There are only so many hours in a school day. When we have less that 50% of third graders reading at grade level, we should be refocusing on the basics of reading, reading comprehension, math, science and history. Leave the the moral training to the parents. A lot of our problems would be solved if the education system focused on creating critical thinkers instead of trying to create their version of good citizens. What is good for my house may not be good for yours. We can respect each other and leave the politics at home and work together to give our kids the to educational tools they need to succeed in the next phase of their lives.