BY LINDA CAGNETTI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Imagine classroom props such as Woodies (wooden penises), dental dams (for oral sex) and female condoms (for anal sex). Imagine teachers using these for hands-on practice for 6th to 12th graders.
Too outrageous to believe, I said.
I was wrong. It's in the pipeline for Ohio public schools. I believed it only after reading copies of grant documents and hand-outs from training sessions, and talking with a Hamilton County teacher who attended and described the Woodies and other things we can't print in a newspaper.
The Ohio Legislature squelched a radical sex education agenda for schools in the 1970s. But the sex educators are back with a vengance, underground this time, using behind-the-scenes regulatory power of the Ohio Department of Education and Department of Health, with public money from the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC). For several years, they've been training selective teachers and others to implement a model that has not yet been approved or seen public light until this fall.
Last week, Gov. George Voinovich asked Ohio School Board President Jennifer Sheets for a "thorough review into the Department of Education's activity on the proposed model," and halt action until the review is done. He also asked the board to "justify constructing a model (sex ed) program when no such program is required (although permitted) by Ohio law."
Two Ohio government agencies -- the Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Health, have worked quietly some several years on a proposed Ohio Model Competency-Based Program in Health and Physical Education. It is a "comprehensive" sex education curricula they want to eventually institutionalize in all public schools.
"Comprehensive" is the code word for a K-12 "value-free" version of what the prominent sex educators Planned Parenthood and the Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SEICUS) have decided is the only correct version of sexuality.
Everything I've seen about the proposed model or standard is technically "legal" and written to be "publicly correct." Who would object to a program called "Reducing the Risk Building Skills to Prevent Pregnancy, STD & HIV"?
The Ohio Department of Education, with a federal grant from the CDC, has been discretely training selected teachers and health educators throughout the state.
Documents included in the DOE's grant requests include focus group findings on what "needs to be done" to recruit and convince reluctant or squeemish educators, enlist support of superintendents, school boards and community groups with credibility. They then could influence the public and neutralize or discredit "the vocal minority" who can stir up a public fuss.
The training sessions list sexual behaviors we can't print. Varieties of so-called "outercourse" (heavy petting, etc.) are presented as natural and appropriate "outlets" for 6-12th graders, as long as they use condoms. Abortion and homosexuality are valid choices for some teens and sex paraphernalia are teaching aides. Videos teach how to persuade "resistent audiences," including Catholics, parents, communities and others.
It includes lessons on how to use all kinds of condoms and a shopping drill to compare prices and labels. The diversity - tolerance exercise works on "appropriate attitudes" toward homosexuality. Religion is deemed irrelevant. Parental values (never mind rights) are not an issue, because in this model, all contraception choices are equal and teens are encouraged "to trust themselves."
The model is billed as "a research-based program that works" to reduce sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. Success is defined as "a reduction in the number of sexual partners teens have," and more teens who "are proficient at using condoms frequently and correctly." There's no pretense of trying to reduce sexual activity among teens.
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WHO TO CALL
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If you're concerned about development of a proposed Ohio Model Competency-Based Progam in Health and Physical Education that includes a sex education curriculum called "Reducing the Risk," contact any of these represenatatives
Jennifer Sheets, president, Ohio Board of Education, phone 614-466-4838 or fax 614-466-0599.
Melanie Bates, state board member for Hamilton and Warren counties, phone 513-281-2193; fax 513-281-2195.
Diana Fessler, state board member for Butler, and Montgomery counties, phone 937-845-8428; fax 937-845-3550.
Cyrus Richardson Jr., state board member for Clermont and Brown counties, phone 513-734-6700; fax 513-734-0483.
Gail Nolte,state board member at-large, phone 513-945-8949; fac 513-945-8979.
Dwight Hibbard, state board member at-large, phone 513-397-7397; fax 513-421-9018.
Sen. Richard Finan, president, Ohio Senate, phone 614-466-9737; fax 614-728-7027.
Rep. Jo Ann Davidson, speaker of the Ohio House, phone 614-466-4847.
Dr. John Goff, Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction, 614-466-4838; fax 614-466-0599.
Sen. Robert Gardner, chairman Ohio Senate Education Committee, ex officio state board member, phone 614-644-7718.
Rep. Charles Brading, chairman Ohio House Education Committee, ex officio state board member, phone 614-466-3819.
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Is this what we call success with our children?
I'm a baby boomer and I'm no saint. But this is an immature and unrealistic approach to the real dangers -- physical and emotional -- that kids face with sexual disease, pregnancy and unlimited experimentation with sex. Look where 15 years of value-free - anything-goes sex education has brought us.
More offensive to me is the arrogant, below-radar manipulation to impose sexual behaviors and attitudes on captive students with no say from their parents. The public (and even the elected state school board, it seems) were kept in the dark while the program has been readied to push for statewide adoption. The rest of us wouldn't know until our kids started talking about Woodies.
It's common to have dueling sides in sex education debates. For every research study by the Planned Parenthood camp, there are matching ones from the abstinence-until-marriage side. The greatest danger with the proposed Ohio model is its absolute claim to authority, to be the only standard for sex education in all schools.
This kind of bureaucratic bullying makes a mockery of public input in public education. Nobody is better than education rulers at adroitly obfuscating matters so that few outsiders can figure out what's really going on. And they wonder why people don't trust them.
Remember the tale of the frog that landed in a pan of water and stayed there until it boiled? If the pan had been hot, the frog would have jumped out. But the water felt okay at first and the frog sensed no danger. He didn't notice the gradual rising heat, which eventually made him too sluggish to care. By the time the water boiled, the frog was dead.
It makes no sense to fight for prayer at school, while a wholesale brainwashing on sex is being planned. This is more than a battle over sex education. It's a battle about the right to know what public institutions are doing with our money in time to speak up. It's about the right to hold and preserve our own values and recognize a hoodwinking.
Woodies and condom lessons are the last thing schools need.
Linda Cagnetti is Deputy Editorial Page Editor for The Enquirer. Write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45201; fax 513-768-8610; phone 513-768-8527.
