Constitutional Law

California's Sex Education Program: Ongoing Struggles Behind the Success Story

By Paul Cates, ACLU

ACLU of Northern California Sex Education Policy Director Phyllida Bulingame has posted an interesting blog post and video on RH Reality Check about the struggles of getting schools to comply with California's sex education policies. She notes that the state has one of the best laws in the country, requiring that sex education in schools and state-funded community programs be comprehensive and bias-free, but,

The gap between policy and practice in California reflects an ongoing challenge: implementation. In California, we have over 1,000 school districts and only one person at the California Department of Education who works on sex education. While the state does evaluate school districts for compliance with the law, its capacity is extremely limited: this year, only three districts have been reviewed. Without a powerful enforcement mechanism, school districts feel that they can ignore—or creatively misinterpret—the law with impunity.

To learn more about what the ACLU of Northern California is doing to achieve compliance with the law, you can read the post and watch the video at RH Reality Check.

Full post as published by Blog of Rights on June 04, 2010 (boomark / email).