Go Ask Alice site used as sample in sex education curriculum
Columbia University’s site Go Ask Alice, borrowing its name from an anonymous diary about one girls stuggle with drugs, is run by Columbia University’s health services department. The site allows students to ask health and sex-based questions to be answered by health professionals. The site has been cited, along with other controversial sources, in a sample curriculum for sex education proposed by the NYC Department of Education. A proposal that is being met with resistence.
SILive.com reports that Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis is taking issue with the revised approach to sex education, calling it “explicit and graphic.” Malliotakis, along with the Parents’ Choice Coalition, is arguing for an alternative sex ed curriculum based on abstinence.
“Legislatures across the nation spend millions upon millions of dollars to combat sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy, highlighting the importance of sexual education,” Malliotakis said. “However, this particular curriculum being forced on children by the New York City Department of Education contains material that is both explicit and graphic.”
The NYC Department of Education maintains that it does not mandate a specific curriculum, it only mandates that sex education be addressed and taught. Among the material to be taught in class, the Parents’ Choice Coalition cites the Go Ask Alice site, a demonstration of how to correctly put on a condom and a scanned workbook page which has students map out routes to abortion clinics and list brands of condoms.
The NYC Department of Education has said that the sample material listed by the Parents’ Coalition does not necessarily reflect the material that would be given to students.
The proposed curriculum would go into effect in January.
Read more about the controversial sex ed curriculum, including Go Ask Alice, here.
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