smart is sexy: designing better sex ed in chicago

ElliE L. Frank

is a fourth year at the University of Chicago. She enjoys brevity.

My first time walking into a Southside Chicago Public School classroom, I was at most five years older than the students I had come to teach. I went in not as a classroom aid or a supplementary teacher, but as the lead educator representing the group Peer Health Exchange (PHE) to talk about a highly-politicized and incredibly important topic: sexual health.

PHE is a nonprofit that trains college students to be health educators in high school classrooms throughout major cities nationwide. We aim to provide comprehensive health education—sexual, mental, and emotional—to high school students and to empower young people to make informed health decisions. During the first lesson that I taught with PHE, one thing kept running through my mind: who let me, a college student, teach such fundamentally important information after only twenty-some hours of preparation? The Chicago Public School (CPS) system’s reliance

Number of teen births in Chicago (mothers aged 15-19) per 1000 lives birth 2013-2017 Credit: Chicago Health Atlas

on college students to come into their classrooms and teach health education speaks volumes about the state of sex education in this city, especially because PHE members lack the necessary pedagogical understanding and experience that professional sexual health educators should possess.

Still, PHE provides a necessary service to the young people of Chicago. Comprehensive, medically accurate sex education produces demonstrably positive results. Students who take comprehensve sex ed are more likely to use condoms and less likely to have unprotected sex, lowering the rate of STI/STDs among teens. 1 Meanwhile, abstinence-only sex education does not effectively prevent teen pregnancy and does not provide young people with the tools or information they need to make informed decisions about their health. 2 The US has a significantly higher rate of teen pregnancy compared to other highly developed countries and the primary cause seems to be the lack of comprehensive sex ed available to American children and teens. 2

Chicago laudably does not have an abstinence-only approach. Instead, CPS policy calls for both comprehensive sex and health education. The official manual states that Chicago students should have “knowledge and skills related to human development, relationships, decision-making, abstinence, medically recommended contraception and disease prevention” from their health education. 3 These topics are absolutely crucial for young people. CPS dictates that health education on human development should start in kindergarten

The official manual states that Chicago students should have “knowledge and skills related to human development, relationships, decision-making, abstinence, medically recommended contraception and disease prevention” from their health education. 3

and continue until twelfth grade, with each class introducing and reinforcing “developmentally-appropriate” health topics. 3

On paper, CPS legislation champions comprehensive health education, but implementation is another story. Chicago’s teen birth rate is still higher than the national average at 21.5 births for every 1000 women aged 15 -19. 4 Schools often lack funding for the required programs, especially the schools on the South Side which primarily serve students of color. Teen pregnancy rates in Chicago are higher in areas where CPS schools have less funding. 4 For example, Englewood has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Chicago, almost double the citywide average. 4 I have personally taught health education in Englewood at TEAM Englewood Community Academy, but the school closed in 2018. Since 2001, sixteen schools in the neighborhood have closed. 5 In order for students to be taught health education they need to be able to go to school. Shuttering local schools puts even more barriers in the way of young people pursuing education in general, let alone comprehensive health education. Every student has the right to basic information about their health, but well-written policy means nothing when implementation is nearly impossible.

Besides funding, health education in Chicago has another dire shortcoming: commitment and dedication. Schools treat health class as a free period. I have been in classrooms before with three students—the other 25 were on a field trip. In other situations, the class was double booked with gym, so the students had gym instead of health. CPS does not have the time, money, and effort needed to provide all students in Chicago with proper sex education, especially in schools that are already underfunded and overcrowded.

In order to mitigate this gap, Chicago Public Schools need more resources dedicated to sex education and broader health education. Charlie Rollason, a 2019 co-coordinator of the University of Chicago’s chapter of PHE, has

Chicago Public Schools need more resources dedicated to sex education and broader health education.

suggested the possibility of national financial incentives. Health education policies are within the purview of state legislatures and county school boards, like the designation of a legal drinking age within a state. The

Credit: Chicago Teachers Union

federal government cannot determine the drinking age for every state, but in 1984 Congress passed legislation that took away 10% of a state’s federal funding for the highway system if the state did not raise the legal drinking age to twenty-one. 6 Similar legislation offering both funding incentives and actual funds to school districts could help the federal government implement comprehensive and effective sexual health education. The costs of such programs may initially seem immense, but considering that teen births cost taxpayers an estimated $9.1 billion in 2004—not including the projected costs of the social programs the United States citizens born to those teen mothers are entitled to— implementing comprehensive general and sexual health programs nationwide may in fact save governments money in the long term. 2

Chicago students should have the same amount of time allocated to their health classes as they do to their English or science classes, starting in kindergarten and continuing to twelfth grade. Some of the students I teach learn about topics such as birth control or consent for the first time in my class, and I usually only have a fifty-minute period to touch on the surface of this vital information. Continuous health education should be a staple of school life. Chicago students deserve years of health education to prepare them for life instead of ten fifty-minute periods taught by college students. Programs should include year-long arcs on consent, gender-identity, sexuality, birth control, relationships, and more. The impor

Continuous health education should be a staple of school life.

tance of sex education goes beyond lowering rates of STIs/STDs and teen pregnancy. Teaching students about consent, gender identity, sexuality, and more supports womens’ health, queer health, and in the end everyone’s health.

My dream curriculum for Chicago’s sex ed, and for America’s sex ed, would tell students that sex is not immoral, bad, scary, or dangerous. Of course abstinence should stay a valid and accepted choice for the young people in this city, but becoming sexually active should be a valid choice as well. Let us acknowledge that many teenagers are sexually active and stop shaming them for it. Instead, we should give them the information and resources to make safe, informed, consensual decisions.

In writing this article, I do not seek to disparage PHE. We teach important knowledge and skills to the young people in Chicago. I have had some amazing experiences teaching with PHE and I know I have made a difference. That being said, I do not believe that we provide the best possible sex ed. Consistent teachers whose professional focus is health education and who teach contuinuous, comprehensive sex education would be the most beneficial for the students.

My experiences in the classroom have reiterated to me the importance of health education for young people. One conversation in particular sticks in my mind: a student mentioned their belief that cling wrap was an effective alternative to condoms. I immediately shut down this contraceptive misconception and went on to field other questions about “alternatives” to condoms such as plastic baggies, grocery bags, and trash bags. I almost cried when one student suggested aluminum foil. To me this demonstrates why we need sex ed in Chicago and in America--no one should graduate highschool thinking tin foil is an acceptable alternative to a condom.

References

1 Center for Disease Control. (2010). Effective HIV and STD Prevention Programs for Youth: A Summary of Scientific Evidence. National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. 2. https://www.cdc.gov/ healthyyouth/sexualbehaviors/pdf/effective_hiv.pdf

2 Stanger-Hall, K. F., & Hall, D. W. (2011). Abstinence-only education and teen pregnancy rates: why we need comprehensive sex education in the U.S. PloS one. 1-29. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194801/#!po=70.6897

3 Chicago Public Schools. (2013). Sexual Health Education. Chicago Public Schools Policy Manual.1-3. https://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194801/#!po=70.6897

4 Chicago Department of Public Health (2013-2017). Teen Birth Rate. Chicago Health Atlas. https://www.chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/teen-birth-rate

5 Kunichoff, Y. (2019). With Opening of New $85 Million Englewood High School, Hope Amid Decades of Disappointment. Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/chicago/2019/09/01/with-opening-of-new-85-millionenglewood-high-school-hope-amid-decades-of-disappointment/