Teen pregnancy rates drop due to abstinence program
We were disturbed by the July 1 school board coverage, "Use of abstinence only curriculum to continue" in The Post and Courier. We want to correct misconceptions perpetuated by the story.
First, we'd like to thank the Charleston County School Board for taking time to consider this issue. Where liberal ideologues try every possible tactic to muzzle programs that emphasize abstinence and the benefits of marriage, as required by state law, the board maintained its long-held position that the district will provide reasonable options for parents.
This policy is central to why teen pregnancy rates have dropped in the Charleston County by 37 percent since Heritage became involved more than a decade ago.
Other districts would be wise to take notice. Whatever else Heritage haters want to argue, they cannot argue with success.
The paper's story quotes College of Charleston Women's Studies professor Deborah Miller as claiming that Heritage Keepers fails to meet state and federal standards. This is simply untrue.
The Heritage program has received clean opinions on all audits of financial statements performed by upstanding CPA firms every year since 1998. It meets all eight of the state's health education standards, including 234 of the 281 objectives under those standards (excluding only non-related topics like bike safety).
Heritage has completed a rigorous medical- and referencing-accuracy updating process under the federal Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention and has been approved by an Institutional Review Board for ethical treatment of evaluation subjects. It utilizes ongoing third-party evaluation of all its programs, which includes extensive review and reporting of outcomes for every educator, a process the district might consider for those teaching the programs not provided by Heritage.
The Heritage program is consistent with state law, which requires emphasis on the benefits of marriage. The very same liberal ideologues who continually oppose Heritage's efforts have removed marriage from its "new" health education standards.
A highly rated peer-reviewed published article validates Heritage's efforts to apply sound theory and methodology to empowering adolescents to avoid the risks associated with early sexual activity.
A year after the Heritage program, students initiated sex at a rate half that of similar non-program students.
We don't expect that every one of the more than 10,000 Charleston County School District students who participated in our program was perfectly pleased, but we are proud that 90 percent said they would recommend the program to a friend. And, of the parents offered the Heritage program, only 1 percent chose another program for their children.
How do opponents describe their programs? They borrow the word "abstinence," but tweak it a little -- to make it sound appealing, like "abstinence-based" or "abstinence-plus."
Yet, an extensive study done by Health and Human Services reveals that the most widely disseminated of such programs contain very little in the way of building the skills teens need to avoid early sexual involvement; some even mock the concept.
We are concerned that the public is unaware of the ideological makeup of the health advisory committee members, most of whom have long passed their term limits as described in their own by-laws.
We find it distasteful that repeated requests from Heritage to the committee for information on the curricula review were ignored.
In the end, the school board agreed with our contention that the services we provide Charleston County schools at no cost to the district bring enough value to the children that we should be allowed to continue to provide this option.
JERRY RAYMOND
Chief Program Officer
Heritage Community Services
Albatross Lane
Mount Pleasant
