UPDATE: A Spokane school district has dropped plans to implement a controversial Planned Parenthood sixth through ninth grade sex education curriculum in schools. The Spokesman Review reports that the school district has decided to select lessons from other sources.
After a delay last summer, the school board tabled the vote. It indicated this week that it would vote on the curriculum implementation; however, on Wednesday, school officials reportedly decided to move in another direction. Parents, pastors, and community members kept pressure on the district to keep Planned Parenthood out of their schools.
What’s Inside Planned Parenthood’s Sex Ed Curriculum?
The program in question, Get Real, is from Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. The curriculum has an embittered past and a questionable future. Already tossed out of schools in Cumberland County, North Carolina, and Saline, Michigan, it has now been rejected by Spokane Public Schools.
Get Real was recommended in Spokane’s schools by the district’s Human Growth and Development Citizen Advisory Committee (HGDCAC), but not everyone on the committee is in favor of it. The group’s Vice Chair, John S. Repsold, is also the pastor of Mosaic Church in Spokane, and has reviewed virtually all the curriculum, reporting on it for community members to read. Repsold writes:
IF YOU WANT PLANNED PARENTHOOD TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE SEX & SEXUALITY EDUCATION OF YOUR CHILDREN IN SPOKANE, READ NO FURTHER.
BUT IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEY WILL TEACH & NOT TEACH TO YOUR CHILDREN, READ ON.
He outlines, from the curriculum (available for view at the district office), what he calls a “condensed” version of what Planned Parenthood will teach at every grade. Some samples from Repsold’s review page*:
6th grade:
- Students will be taught that “protected sex” has little or no negative consequences for 6th graders (p. 6-33).
- That “postponement and condom use are healthy behaviors for 6th graders” (a “Lesson Goal” for Grade 6, Lesson 8 on Abstinence).
7th grade:
- Planned Parenthood will be the first and primary “resource” both students and parents are referred to for resources and counsel in virtually every resource list (p. 7-36, 48).
- 7th grade students will see their teacher “demonstrate steps with an actual condom and ask students to explain the importance of each step.” Teachers will “pass around condoms for students to see and handle” (p. 7-77).
- All role play scenario activities designed to teach children refusal and negotiation skills will involve situations where kids are having sexual intercourse, (Scenarios 7.9-4—In Activity Kit—Role Play—p. 7-93). None of them involve abstinence scenarios or skills needed by the majority of youth who have chosen abstinence.
8th grade:
- Students will be asked to create a brochure for any of the 15 different birth control methods in the “Protective Methods Chart” (8.4-6).
9th grade:
- Students will be required to “locate three sexual health care facilities and contact one of these to gain more information,” such as address, how to get there, hours, protection methods available, cost of STI testing and “student rate available” (9.5-3; Homework 9.5).
- Students will be required to demonstrate the 15 steps given for using a condom and “demonstration tool,” (9.5-4 and 9.5-4 Handout). Note: 8th grade curriculum lists 17 steps, see Handout 8.4-4).
- “Using the steps on the handout,” students will “pair up and take turns putting a condom on a demonstration tool. After a correct demonstration,” teachers will “have students switch so everyone has a chance to practice these skills” (Activity 9.6-4).
- Students will be asked to “practice putting on a condom blindfolded” to simulate the difficulty of doing so when drunk (Activity 9.6-5).
- Students will be taught “that using a lubricant can increase pleasure as well as efficacy of condoms” (9.5-4).
*All citations and quotations directly from Repsold’s evaluation
This troubling focus on active sex for children as young as sixth grade should come as no surprise to those who are aware that Planned Parenthood gives questionable and dangerous advice to teenagers — as caught on tape by Live Action:
An Inside Job by Planned Parenthood
Repsold also notes that “Planned Parenthood will be paid $90,000 the first year of this curriculum and $28,000 every year thereafter for teacher guides and student workbooks.”
As a member of the committee, Repsold says the majority on the committee, “refused to take the time needed to review this material on a chapter-by-chapter, grade by grade basis. Most chose to trust Planned Parenthood and the ‘process’ leading up to this committee.” The committee then voted 9-3 and sent the almost-900 page curriculum to the school board for approval. He says the six committee members who supported Planned Parenthood’s curriculum also “refused to take the time to hear the specific objections of the three dissenting members of the Committee.” And Repsold adds two disturbing facts about the “inside job” of this curriculum development:
From 4-6 current members of the HGD CAC [Human Growth and Development Citizen Advisory Committee] are either former or present employees of Planned Parenthood or have served or do serve on the Board of Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood, well-funded and staffed by our tax dollars, has been flooding the Board with emails and public comments over the summer. The Board now believes that the public is largely in favor of this material.
A Curriculum With Troubling Results
Meanwhile, the only source saying this curriculum is effective is the abortion corporation itself. Planned Parenthood insists its Get Real curriculum works by citing a singular 2014 study (which Planned Parenthood helped to fund and facilitate, something it openly discloses), with results published in the Journal of School Health. Partnering with the Wellesley [University] Center for Women, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts insists that schools that use this curriculum find that fewer students are having sex. The Get Real website claims:
A recent study demonstrated that, among students who received Get Real, 16% fewer boys and 15% fewer girls had sex compared to their peers who did not take Get Real.
However, this claim is highly questionable, based on a five-year report from the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Adolescent Health, revealing that sex education programs are actually a failure in public schools. The report, as Live Action News noted in October, said:
[H]alf billion dollars of spending and half a decade of work has failed to produce the effective sex education programs promised. In fact, a closer look at the data from the HHS office shows that in some cases, the federally-funded sex education programs helped contribute to an increase of pregnancy and sexual exploration in teenagers, while other programs didn’t impact behavior changes at all. While those supporting these sex education programs, including Planned Parenthood, have lauded the “evidence-based” curricula they provide, the results show evidence of widespread failure.
One of these main areas of failure was actually in Spokane’s region, as Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest was granted $400,000 to implement another sex education program, Teen Outreach Program (TOP), in area schools. A 45-page report from HHS notes the results:
Using data from almost 7,000 middle and high school students across five states in the northwest region of the U.S., no positive impacts were found on pregnancy overall at the end of the program or 12 months later. In addition, no positive impacts were found on having recent sexual intercourse, or on having recent sex without use of effective methods of birth control, both measured at the end of the program.
A Proven Failure and a Waste of Taxpayer Dollars
Planned Parenthood’s involvement in school education programs and reducing sexual activity has already failed. While the TOP is different than the Get Real curriculum, the five-year report evaluated the results of multiple programs from multiple states, as Live Action News reported in October, and found that these programs are, essentially, a widespread failure and waste of money, producing few, if any, positive outcomes.
The Get Real curriculum page says, “It promotes abstinence from sex as the healthiest choice for adolescents,” but the truth is, if teenagers abstained from sex, Planned Parenthood would lose a lot of its business. Since the abortion giant authored this curriculum and students are being forced to practice how to use birth control, how to call places like Planned Parenthood, and to listen to constant discussions of recreational sex among teens — all as part of the curriculum — there can be no doubt that one of the goals is to gain students as lifelong customers.
Spokane Public Schools refused to let Planned Parenthood in its doors, and, as Repsold and other dissenting members have discovered, the school board can now direct its money into more effective causes that actually do prevent teenage sexual activity.
