Just Saying No to Abstinence Only Funding Is Only A Start

From the NY Times:

New York is rejecting millions of dollars in federal grants for abstinence-only sex education, the state health commissioner, Dr. Richard F. Daines, announced yesterday. The decision puts New York in line with at least 10 other states that have decided to forgo the federal money in recent years.

New York has received roughly $3.5 million a year from the federal government for abstinence-only education since 1998. The abstinence program was approved as part of welfare overhauls under the Clinton administration and was expanded and restructured under President Bush.

In a statement posted on the Health Department’s Web site, Dr. Daines said, “The Bush administration’s abstinence-only program is an example of a failed national health care policy directive.” He added that the policy was “based on ideology rather than on sound scientific-based evidence that must be the cornerstone of good public health care policy.”

The state had also spent $2.6 million annually to fund the same programs over the last decade. That money will now be spent on other existing programs for sex education, Dr. Daines said in an interview. . . .

Now if New York and other states would just say to the behavioral literacy training that the lead quacks, Reid Lyon and Doug Carnine, have packaged as reading instruction for the poor, we could begin, perhaps, to repair the damage done to millions of American children who are taught how NOT to think for several hours of every day.

By the way, the other day when I was sharing with my students some of the pornographic clips from the Association for Direct Instruction website, one student commented on the ominous music behind the clinical narration. He noted that only the harmonica is missing to truly make it jailhouse-worthy. Effective Behavior Management, now that's a good one. Taking it off here, Boss!

Maybe we should send some of these videos to the ghouls in charge of Friday nite programming at the Prison Channel, MSNBC--call it Prison Prep or Carnine's Cages!! How about Reid's Redemption?