Bill Ritter’s administration is in a turf war with the State Board of Education over sex, kids and health care reform.
State law requires schools to teach science-based sex education and not just abstinence. The governor pushed the policy in 2007 as part of his “Colorado Promise” to cut teen pregnancy rates.
The independently elected Board of Education is sidestepping the law by seeking a federal grant to teach abstinence only. The Bush-era program was nixed by the Obama administration but restored as part of health care reform in a concession to conservatives.
“The state board is actively seeking to break the law,” says state Rep. Michael Merrifield, a co-sponsor of the comprehensive approach.
At issue behind the buzzwords and bureaucracy are estimates that a baby is born to a Colorado teen every 90 minutes, according to the Healthy Colorado Youth Alliance. Shaming and scaring kids as a lone strategy doesn’t keep girls from getting pregnant. Chastity vows and purity rings are no measure of effectiveness.
There are two federal funding streams for sex ed in schools. One teaches kids about condoms and birth- control pills in addition to how to say no. The other approach, abstinence only, is popular among conservatives. They demanded it as a condition for reforming health care.
The Ritter administration decided to apply only for the first kind of grant, worth $3.9 million to Colorado. It didn’t seek the $3.2 million in abstinence-only funding because the approach is inconsistent with the 2007 state law.
“We had to make choices,”says Lorez Meinhold, Ritter’s health policy analyst. “Evidence-based pregnancy prevention is something the governor cares a lot about.”
The Republican-majority Board of Education wants the abstinence-only money anyway. It voted 4-3 to seek the $3.2 million grant.
After the feds questioned the board’s authority to apply, Attorney General John Suthers’ office gave it the go-ahead.
The Ed Board wants the money to target middle- schoolers in districts with high rates of out-of-wedlock pregnancies. It cites these statewide standards for eighth-graders: “Describe the physical, emotional, mental and social benefits of sexual abstinence and develop strategies to resist pressures to become sexually active.”
“Abstinence is certainly a component of our health standards,” says Diana Sirko, a deputy education commissioner.
Local districts would have to come up with the $1.37 million in matching funds the federal government requires.
The Education Department hasn’t picked a group to carry out the contract. The Denver-based WAIT Training program has pursued the grant so hard, officials say, that it took the liberty of filling out an application for the state.
Still in question is which schools might qualify, given that only charters and the San Luis Valley’s Center Consolidated School District are allowed to teach abstinence exclusively. That district was exempted under the 2007 law.
Education officials counter that there are no restrictions.
In Ritter’s last months on the job, the Ed Board’s end-run marks a major challenge to his power as a lame-duck governor and another setback in meeting his Colorado Promise.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
