Related Links

DCPS Draft Health Learning Standards 07/02/07 Safety Monitor (Metro Weekly) 08/02/07 D.C. drafts gay-inclusive sex ed plan (The Washington Blade) 07/27/07 Readers Speak Out About New Sex-Education Curriculum (The Washington Post) 07/19/07 The Wide Spectrum Of Sex-Ed Courses (The Washington Post) 03/18/07 GLAA endorses HPV Vaccination and Reporting Act 02/09/07 Health chief assumes control of AIDS office (The Washington Blade) 01/12/07 GLAA testifies in favor of smokefree workplace legislation 06/14/05 Eastern High School Principal violates Human Rights Act and DCPS policies 10/16/02 GLAA on Public Health GLAA on Public Education and Youth

GLAA is a Lambda Rising Affiliate! Click here and we'll get a commission on every item you purchase.

Ms. Michelle Rhee, Chancellor
District of Columbia Public Schools
825 N. Capitol St, NE
Washington, DC 20002

Dear Chancellor Rhee:

We are writing to commend you and the D.C. Public Schools for your draft “Health Learning Standards” dated July 2, 2007, and specifically for their inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identification as part of what the introduction calls “the knowledge and skills that students need to maintain and improve their health and wellness, prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors.”

For detailed recommendations, we commend you to the submission from the DC Healthy Youth Coalition, an alliance of numerous groups such as Whitman-Walker Clinic, Metro Teen AIDS, and the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, who have extensive experience with youth health issues. We would like to suggest some general considerations to keep in mind in developing and implementing a curriculum based on the standards:

• Where there is an established scientific consensus, that consensus is what should be taught. Anti-gay organizations routinely manufacture bogus controversies and then demand that schools “teach the controversy” in the name of balance. That is not balance but miseducation, and must be resisted. So-called “reparative therapy” is no more based on sound science than “intelligent design,” and amounts to the establishment of religion by a back door. Homosexuality is recognized as a normal variant of human sexuality by such leading professional organizations as the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, and that normality should not be treated as seriously in dispute based upon the pseudoscience of socially intolerant right-wing groups.

• We support your inclusion of abstinence education as part of a comprehensive approach to the teaching of sexual health. This is quite different from the federal “abstinence-only until marriage” policy, which studies have shown does not deter teen sex. Furthermore, “abstinence only” education excludes gay and lesbian teens, who at present are offered no prospect of marriage. Please take care, when developing a detailed curriculum, not to allow the appropriate teaching of responsibility and postponement of gratification to morph into what amounts to a message to sexual minority youth that lifelong celibacy is their only option.

• Health modules should include information of sufficient detail to be useful. This means specific information on the use of condoms and other methods of contraception.

• Experience has taught us that individual teachers and especially principals often impose their own whims and prejudices and disregard DCPS policy. For this health education program to be successful, it will be important to monitor and enforce compliance.

• The D.C. Human Rights Act and DCPS’s own anti-harassment policy have already established a standard of equality regardless of sexual orientation. This principle should be taken to heart in the educational context as well. For example, in the eighth grade module on “the theories about what determines sexual orientation,” it should be made clear at the outset that this means heterosexuality and bisexuality in addition to homosexuality.

• Information on gender identity and transgender people should be expanded, especially in light of the range of problems encountered by transgender youth due to ignorance and intolerance.

• Information on the intersexed, a little-known and much-misunderstood minority, should be included in Human Growth and Development.

In general, we agree with Jeremy Ogusky, deputy director of Metro Teen AIDS, who praised the draft standards for being well written and based in comprehensive sex education. As always, how the standards are put into practice will be crucial, but you have made a good beginning. Thank you for your attention, and best of luck.

Sincerely,

Barrett L. Brick
President

Cc: Hilda L. Ortiz, Chief Academic Officer
Gloria L. Benjamin, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction
Barbara Rockwood, Executive Director of Athletics, Health/Physical Education
Deborah Gist, DC State Superintendent of Education
Christopher Dyer