In Massachusetts today, some public schools districts provide excellent health education, while others offer little to no teaching on this subject. Yet research shows that medically accurate, age-appropriate health education helps young people to stay healthy – which can only enhance their ability to learn (1).

 

When it comes to relationships and sex, these programs teach the benefits of abstinence while also providing vital information on contraception and prevention of pregnancy and disease. This is especially critical to improving educational achievement, given that teen pregnancy is the leading cause of drop out among young women (2). These curricula also cover such critical topics as nutrition, mental health, safety, substance abuse, and violence prevention.

 

In 1993, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the Commonwealth must provide an adequate education for those enrolled in the public schools. It further defined "adequacy" by requiring that students possess specific capabilities, including "sufficient self-knowledge and knowledge of his or her mental and physical wellness" (2). In response to this ruling, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE, formerly the Department of Education or DOE) created a science-based health education framework (3).

 

Yet, to this day, little is known about the extent to which school districts are incorporating these subjects into the classroom. To identify the current gaps in health education across the Commonwealth, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts supports An Act Relative to Providing Health Education in Schools (H.402).

 

Sponsored by Senator Harriette Chandler and Representative Alice Wolf, this bill would direct DESE to conduct a statewide study on the provision of health education by each school district and each charter school in the Commonwealth. In March 2010, the Joint Committee on Education gave this measure a favorable report.

 

(This bill, when originally filed as H.3434/S.218, would have also added age-appropriate, medically accurate health education – including sex education – to the core subjects for Massachusetts public schools and restated Massachusetts law requiring schools to have a parental notification policy and allow parents to exempt their children from any portion of the curriculum.)