…that we should responsibly use schools to teach people truths. Reality has no agenda.
The table depicts the relative risk for abstinence-only education the rate of diagnosis for STIs and rate of pregnancy in comparison to controls. The confidence intervals are also indicated. In this chart a movement to the left would indicate a reduction in relative risk for these indicators and would favor abstinence-only education. Note that not one of these studies shows a statistically significant improvement with abstinence-only education; for
all of these studiesall but one of these studies the confidence intervals cross 1 indicating that there was no overall improvement in outcomes. (Ed. The one study that shows statistical significance showed that abstinence-only education actually increases the rate of STIs and pregnancy. I missed that on the first pass.)…
Abstinence-only education is a waste of money and time, and it needs to stop. We should throw that money into more aggressive abstinence-plus programs. Furthermore, we should continue to assess whether and what kinds of abstinence-plus programs are effective at generating improved outcomes. It may turn out that abstinence-plus programs are not effective either, and we need to accept that as a possibility. But for the time being, they appear to be the best option, and I think we should run with that.
Read the whole post over at Pure Pedantry.