Outrage is growing among New York City parents and lawmakers after details about the contents of the new mandatory sex education curriculum revealed a text full of graphic material many find inappropriate for children.
The New York Post obtained workbooks that will be used in the new curriculum and say parents may not be happy with the contents. Some examples include an assignment for middle school students who will use “risk cards” to rate the safety of different activities which range from French kissing to oral sex.
One of the workbooks also directs middle schoolers to a website run by Columbia University known as “Go Ask Alice” which explores various sexual positions, foot fetishes, pornography, “swing clubs” and bestiality.
In another section, students are given a homework assignment that consists of mapping out routes to local abortion clinics and going to stores to check out the various brands and prices of condoms.
A video presentation uses a phallus-shaped object to instruct children on how to use a condom.
The city’s Department of Education (DOE) insists their program “stresses that abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy and STD/HIV” and says parents have an option to exclude their children from any lessons concerning “methods of prevention.”
They also insist that schools do not recommend using the sample workbook pages which were published in the Post article, and said none of the sex ed books ordered by the City’s schools direct readers to the “Go Ask Alice” site.
However, this is not what Greg Pfundstein, the executive director of the pro-life Chiaroscuro Foundation, which financially backs the parents’ coalition, found when he ordered the course material for the programs. All of the offensive material was included in the books.
“Now, the city wants to deny that they use the book that includes the reference to goaskalice.com, but it is definitely in the curriculum, in the ‘Health Facts’ book,” he told silive.com. “When we followed the link from the DOE . . . to the vendor of the curriculum and ordered the curriculum, they shipped us, wrapped up together in one package, the teacher book, the student work book, and the ‘Health Facts’ book, which is a supplemental book for the use of teachers and students.”
If the department is using some other version, they need to clarify this, he said.
In the meantime, lawmakers are speaking out against the mandate. Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island assemblywoman has joined forces with two other elected officials and the Parents’ Choice Coalition in calling for the city to offer parents an alternative curriculum based on abstinence from sexual activity.
“Legislatures across the nation spend millions upon millions of dollars to combat sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy, highlighting the importance of sexual education,” said Ms. Malliotakis in a written statement. “However, this particular curriculum being forced on children by the New York City Department of Education contains material that is both explicit and graphic.”
Malliotakis appeared at a press conference yesterday with Rep. Bob Turner (R-Brooklyn/Queens) and state Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn), as well as the head of the NYC Parents’ Choice Coalition, former Assemblyman Michael Benjamin (D-Bronx).
“New York is a multicultural city whose residents hold a variety of deeply held beliefs and social traditions,” Benjamin said. “It’s wrong to force them to choose between what the city is planning and no sex education at all. Parents who want a more traditional, abstinence-based sex education curriculum for their children should be able to have that.”
Michael Reilly, a member of the borough’s Community Education Council (CEC), said he’d like to see more clarity from school officials about what the curriculum will ultimately entail.
“It is unacceptable that parents will only have an ‘opt-out’ option in regards to birth control methods. The parents should have more options concerning sex education and their children,” he said. “The lack of transparency with this program has only inflamed tensions between parents and the DOE.”
Added CEC President Sam Pirozzolo, “The DOE should have a very simple and straightforward sex education curriculum that teaches children about their bodies and the changes they go through.
“They should be taught about sex and pregnancy and how not to become pregnant. Any other conversation about sex, straight sex, gay sex, sexual positions, multiple partners, and so on, goes far beyond what any child or person needs to know to keep themselves safe.”
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