Univ. of Penn Study Reports Effectiveness of Abstinence-Only Education

You may have seen news reports this week about a new University of Pennsylvania study, published in the February, 2010, issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The study by John Jemmott, III, Ph.D. and two other colleagues shows what absinence proponents already know: abstinence-only programs for youth work better to prevent or delay sexual activity than other alternatives. Here's an overview:

Six hundred sixty-two urban African-American kids, both boys and girls, with an average age of 12.2 years, were part of a randomized controlled trial. Some kids received eight hours of character-based, abstinence-only instruction, similar to what is presented in OFPC's KEEP Program. Other children got eight hours of safer sex/condom use instruction. Still others got eight to 12 hours of a comprehensive sex education (CSE) program. Finally, other youth received eight hours of instruction in just a general health promotion course, which did not mention sexuality or contraception at all.

Two years later, only one-third of students who had received the abstinence-only course self-reported having had sexual intercouse, compared with about half of the control group. According to researchers, abstinence-only worked well with these inner-city kids! The other kids that got comprehensive sex ed instruction had just as much sex as the control group; CSE showed no effectiveness to prevent or delay sexual intercourse, although CSE did reduce students' self-reports of having multiple sexual partners.

Here's the significance: the Penn study shows early intervention is important and effective among urban youth to decrease sexual intercourse, STDs, HIV, and pregnancies, and for a long period, in this case two years, following the intervention.

New Taxes to Hit Middle Class Families

A new article posted on The Drudge Report references a host of new "backdoor" taxes that may soon be negatively affecting middle-class families across America, despite the oft-repeated campaign promises of 2008.

Click here to read the article.

OMI Presents Relationship Strengthening Workshop Feb. 6

This Saturday, you and your sweetheart are invited to attend the free Forever For Real Relationship Strengthening Workshop, presented by the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, at one of four locations in OKC (Express Event Center, 8512 NW Exp), Downtown OKC (Skirvin Hilton Hotel), Moore/Norman (Embassy Suites, 2501 Conference Dr., Norman), or Tulsa (Crowne Plaza Hotel, 100 E. Second). Event time is 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The presentation will be essentially the same at each location, and a free box lunch is included.

To sweeten the deal, engaged couples who attend can save $45 on the cost of their Oklahoma marriage license.

For more information, visit http://www.foreverforreal.com/ or call (877) 435-8033.

2010 Oklahoma Legislature Convenes

Today, the Oklahoma Legislature is up and running again, and state legislators face the daunting task of planning for the next fiscal year with $1.3 billion in less revenue than they had to appropriate last year.

To make things even tougher for elected officials, the legislators must factor in the real possibility of much less revenue coming into state coffers for the next two or three years, to boot. Of course, decreasing the size of state government would not be a bad thing for taxpayers (it has already grown significantly over the past several years), but that's not the way many of the politicians at 23rd and Lincoln will think, unfortunately.

As you know, the Oklahoma Constitution mandates a balanced budget (unlike the federal budget which, by the way, the Obama Administration announces has a $1.56 trillion deficit!). Spending cuts will be in view throughout the 2010 Oklahoma legislative Session, but that doesn't mean lots of mischief can't be done or good things accomplished for Oklahoma citizens over the next 4 months.

Please plan to attend the following this week and next:

UPCOMING EVENTS

Rose Day (to promote pro-life public policy) is this Wednesday morning, Feb. 3, 2010, at the State Capitol.

Capitol Day (to promote home education) is the following Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010, at the State Capitol. OCHEC is encouraging folks to turn out since two anti-home schooling bills have been introduced (HB 3099 and SB 1403).

Teen Pregnancy: Bogus Problems, Bogus Solutions

Regarding Abstinence Education, in a Jan. 27 report from Washington, D.C., Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow Robert Rector said:

"The Guttmacher Institute recently released a report raising alarm over a one-year increase in teen pregnancy. "Safe sex" experts quickly pinned the blame on abstinence education.

Interesting, the decade after the federal government began its meager funding of abstinence education, teen pregnancy fell steadily. Safe-sex experts never linked the decline to abstinence education. But when the news went bad, they swiftly identified abstinence programs as the culprit.

But did teen pregnancy actually rise in 2006, as Guttmacher claims? It depends on what you mean by "teen." For most people, "teen pregnancy" implies pregnancy among high school girls under age 18. According to Guttmacher's own data, the pregnancy rate for 15-17-year old girls barely changed, and the rate for girls 14 and under (the group most affected by abstinence programs) actually dropped.

By contrast, the pregnancy and birth rates for young adult women aged 18 and 19 rose sharply.

The rise in pregnancy and birth in this age range is part of a much larger story: the collapse of marriage and explosive growth of out-of-wedlock births in lower income communities.

Between 1997-2007 very few non-martial births in comparison occurred to minor girls; most were to less-educated young adult women aged 18-26. In the grand scheme of things, the issue of "teen" pregnancy is dwarfed by its much larger cousin, the disintegration of marriage. Marital collapse is a catastrophe for taxpayers and society in general; the welfare costs alone exceed $250 billion per year. Of the 1.7 million children born out of wedlock in 2007, only 136,000 (or 7%) had mothers under the age of 18.

I believe the Left hypes "teen pregnancy" to support their agenda of condom promotion and permissive sex education in the public schools. When lower income men and women were surveyed about access to condoms and prevention methods very few stated the reason for pregnancy as lack of access to birth control."

Why do organizations like Oklahoma Family Policy Council stay committed to the message of abstinence? We believe it's good public policy, it's 100% safe, and it's the best message for our teens. The K.E.E.P. (Kids Eagerly Endorsing Purity) Program is alive and advancing the cause of healthy choices among teens. Saying no to sex before marriage and no to drugs and alcohol is a right message for teens today. True abstinence is the message parents 91% of parents want schools to teach their child (according to a Zogby poll).

Mike Jestes, Executive Director
Oklahoma Family Policy Council

U.S. Senate Debates Increase in Debt Ceiling

The U.S. Senate is debating H.R. 45, a measure to increase the authorized national debt ceiling to over $13 trillion.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Muskogee) noted in his recent email newsletter that the U.S. Senate just increased the government's authorized debt ceiling less than a month ago on Dec. 26.

Dr. Coburn also provided mind-blowing perspective about the current Senate effort to raise the ceiling once again by almost another $2 trillion (take a good look at number 4 below):

• The debt limit increase will rank as the largest in American history, shattering the previous record nearly twice over.

• The federal deficit for 2009 surpasses our entire federal budget spending for 1999 by $200 billion.

• The deficit for 2009 is nearly three times our previous record for federal budget deficits.

• Our national debt in 2009 increased by a rate of $4 billion a day. That means every 1.5 days, the federal government is running a deficit equal to the entire annual budget of the State of Oklahoma.

• The national debt, not including obligations to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, now stands at $39,000 per man, woman, and child.

• Currently, Congress borrows 43 cents for every dollar it spends.

Unbelievable, folks.

Article Exposes Oklahoma's March Toward Federalization of Education

Like 39 other states and the District of Columbia, Oklahoma is now seeking millions in federal stimulus funds to put our state's common education system further along the well-worn path to complete federalization of education, in what is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, although few seem to express alarm.

What began in the 1990s with Outcomes-Based Education and later progressed through various incarnations as America 2000, Goals 2000, School-to-Work, and No Child Left Behind is now entering a new phase, which is being managed, in part, by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

One of the most telling articles we've read was published in yesterday's Sunday Oklahoma by reporter Megan Rolland.

Oklahoma's Race to the Top application, drafted by former Tulsa mayor Kathy Taylor, now Gov. Brad Henry's education czar, seeks $183 million in federal funds to:

1)  transition the state from its current PASS standards (whose creation violated outgoing State Supt. of Public Instruction Sandy Garrett's Dec. 1995 promise that "OBE is dead in Oklahoma.") to a nationally drafted curriculum, which is being developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

2)  patch Oklahoma into the national Web-based data system under development that will track all Oklahoma students from pre-K onward until after they enter the labor market. The data system will include all sorts of nosy personal information on students, their values, and their families in addition to academic data, and will be available to school officials, government, and business. This is a souped-up electronic version of the written Dangan, which was commonly used in Communist countries in the 20th Century.

According to author and education expert John Taylor Gatto, the American Dangan has been under development since at least the mid-1960s, courtesy of Progressive educrats like the late Ralph Tyler, who perfected the use of assessments to gauge students' indoctrination and progress. Only now have technology advances and the common use of the Internet made a seamless, national (and worldwide) system like this possible.

3)  create a new teacher evaluation system, so school officials can identify and remove teachers and principals they deem to be "ineffective" or underperforming, contrary to what the government desires. Ostensibly, the goal is to remove bad teachers, but there is room for much mischief. Taylor promises guidance from "national experts" in developing the "state's" evaluation system.

According to the Jan. 24 Sunday Oklahoman article, 64 state teachers unions, including the Oklahoma Education Association, the state affiliate of the National Education Association, signed off on the state's federal application, as did 324 school districts representing approximately 80 percent of Oklahoma's public school students.

So, it appears the transition from historic local control of education by parents to what is, effectively, complete federal control of education, conveniently managed by state government officials, comtinues.

Will Oklahoma parents and children -- and our state's schools -- ever regain their freedom and liberty?