Tuesday, August 16, 2011

New York Archdiocese Criticizes Sex-Ed Mandate

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York called a new city requirement that sex education be taught at all public middle and high schools “troubling” on Wednesday, and some Catholic officials said they would advise Catholic parents not to let their children participate.

In the first serious challenge to the city’s mandate, which was announced on Tuesday, a spokesman for the archdiocese said the church’s position was that parents, not the schools, should educate children about sex. 

“Parents have the right and the responsibility to be the first and primary educators of their children,” Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese, wrote in a statement.

“This mandate by the city usurps that role, and allows the public school system to substitute its beliefs and values for those of the parents.”

The sex-education curriculum — packages of lesson plans titled HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk — describes abstinence as the best method to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. It includes lessons on how to use a condom and discussions about the appropriate age for sexual activity.

The lesson plans have been recommended by the city for several years, and are already used in many schools.

Until now, principals have chosen what, if anything, is taught about sexuality. 

The city will now require that all students take a semester of sex education in middle school and again in high school. 

For schools that do not have a program in place, the city will recommend that its program be taught.

Edward Mechmann, a lawyer for the archdiocese, said he objected to the “overall lesson” of the city’s program, “that abstinence is a nice ideal.”

Mr. Mechmann said he would encourage parents to exercise an opt-out clause and exclude their children from lessons about contraception. 

“I’d also insist that parents inspect the materials to make sure there’s nothing really offensive or inaccurate being put in there,” he said. “We don’t say that about cigarettes,” he added. “We don’t say, here’s a filtered cigarette — it’s better than Camel.”

Nicholas A. DiMarzio, the bishop of Brooklyn, said he planned to work with Catholic parents across the city to “assert their parent rights on this issue.” 

Some public schools that rent space from the church could have to find new locations in which to teach the required courses.

But as parents and members of community groups and religious organizations began to digest news about the new sex-education program on Wednesday, there were few other objections.

Souleimane Konaté, an imam who is the head of the Masjid Aqsa mosque in Harlem, said he was in favor of the requirement.

“I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “I do talk about it sometimes, but people look at me like I’m crazy because the imams aren’t supposed to talk about it. It’s taboo in my community. But if somebody is doing it for me, I would support them 100 percent.”

Several parents said that teenage pregnancy rates and the number of young people with H.I.V. had made it difficult to oppose the requirement on moral grounds.

Vanessa Mercado, the after-school program manager at the Inwood Academy for Leadership charter school, said that when she attended Catholic school, she never had a sex-education class. 

Things should be different for her daughter, Ms. Mercado said.

“Children are exposed to sex in so many forms now that it’s better they get the right information from someone,” she said.

Tesa Wilson, a member of the Community Education Council for District 14 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said she thought the new policy was “right-on,” although she acknowledged that in her neighborhood, where many families are observant, her view might not be widespread. 

One possible reason for lowered temperatures around the topic of sex education is that many New Yorkers once sat through health classes that were, in many ways, more explicit. 

In 1981, when Ms. Wilson was a junior, sex education was taught, and the school would help students obtain birth control and counseling if they asked, she said.

Janet Heller, principal of Middle School 324, recalled a previous curriculum, titled Family Living Including Sex Education, which the Board of Education mandated in 1986.

It covered many of the same topics that the city’s current curriculum does, and it placed a heavy emphasis on abstinence, Ms. Heller said. Nonetheless, it was controversial.

“At the time it was new, it was, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to be talking about condoms,’ ” she said. “But now it’s old hat; they have condoms next to candy in the drugstores.”

Throughout the 1990s, parents in a school district in western Queens repeatedly made headlines for banning the words contraception, abortion, homosexuality and masturbation from their schools’ health classes.

Under mayoral control, school boards no longer have the authority to issue such orders, but some parents in District 24 still feel that sex education is not the province of public schools.

“I don’t agree with it, because I think parents should teach their children at their own discretion,” said Lucy Accardo, the mother of four children and a member of the Community Education Council for District 24.