According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40% of Wisconsin teens are sexually active, but less than 65% of those teens reported using a condom during their last sexual encounter. 1 in 4 teens nationwide has at least one STD, with Wisconsin having the 23rd highest Chlamydia rate in the country. Many Wisconsin counties have teen birth rates higher than the state and national averages. Children born to teen mothers are nine times as likely to live in poverty as children of non-teen mothers. We know what works for teens: comprehensive, medically accurate, evidenced-based sexuality education. However, Wisconsin has now undone the progress made in 2010 on this critical issue.

In 2010, the Healthy Youth Act was signed into law. This smart public policy set a minimum standard for sex education in Wisconsin, requiring that sex education taught in Wisconsin public schools be medically accurate, evidence-based, age-appropriate, and comprehensive. The law did not mandate that sex education be taught. It preserved the local control of parents, teachers, and school administrators who have long made the human growth and development curriculum decisions in Wisconsin. But before the impact of the Healthy Youth Act could even be assessed, the State Legislature repealed many of the critical protections and advances made by the Act, leaving students and parents in the dark and compromising any progress that was made in the last year.

As Wisconsin’s women’s health policy leader, the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health stood strongly against the repeal of the Healthy Youth Act for four key reasons: (1) It’s bad for Wisconsin youth; (2) it’s bad for the health of our communities; (3) it’s bad for our state’s economy; and (4) the public, especially health professionals, did not support the repeal

The legislation passed this year undermines and reduces the role of teachers and administrators in curriculum decisions; dismisses medically supported research; discourages doctors and nurses from teaching health classes; allows the use of ineffective abstinence-only programs; and indirectly endorses teen pregnancy while ignoring teen pregnancy prevention. See WAWH’s fact sheet on the bill for more information.

Already, school districts are reexamining their curriculum based on this bad state policy. In Green Bay, where the teen pregnancy rate is the fourth highest in the state, the school board will be meeting over the summer to review the curriculum and could remove the language about contraception. Beloit recently adopted a new human growth and development curriculum. It’s critical for all child advocates to pay attention to what’s happening locally, so we can speak out for the young people in our communities and ensure that they get the comprehensive, medically accurate, evidence-based, age appropriate, abstinence-plus education they deserve.

In the coming weeks and months, voters who care about the health and economic well-being of teens in our state should also ask candidates where they stand on medically accurate, evidence-based, comprehensive sex education. For more information on legislators’ voting records on women and young peoples’ health, check out WAWH’s Ask. Learn. Vote! campaign.

–Sara Finger, Executive Director, Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health
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This is one in a series of blog posts providing perspectives on some of the state policy changes and fiscal decisions made during the past legislative session, and the impact they are having on Wisconsin’s children and families. We hope the public will consider these impacts and will urge candidates to talk more about these issues as elections approach. The views expressed in each post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of WCCF or the opinions of authors of any of the other posts.