Morning Bell: The Obama War On Science
Conn Carroll /
The Washington Post reports today that the Obama administration is entering “the politically sensitive debate” on sex education by spending $110 million on 115 programs in 38 states and the District of Columbia that “teach about the risks of specific sexual activities and the benefits of contraception and others that focus primarily on encouraging teens to delay sex.” But as the Post later reports, only five of these 110 programs are “authentic” abstinence programs and they will receive less than $5 million. So how did the Obama administration choose which programs to fund? The Post says the Obama administration is “promising to put scientific evidence before political ideology.” Don’t believe them for a second. On issue after issue, this administration has dressed up their political proposals behind the mantle of “science,” and on every issue there simply is no scientific consensus to support their political positions.
Take sex education. Contrary to assertions from the left that permissive sex education decreases teen birth rates, after adjusting for important demographic differences among states, those with liberal sex-ed policies actually have higher rates of pregnancy for girls under 18. And a recent study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that abstinence education reduced teen sex without causing any adverse decline in contraception use, while “safe sex” and comprehensive sex ed programs failed to reduce teen sex or increase contraceptive use.
Take early education. The Obama administration wants to expand the Head Start program, claiming that a recent Department of Health and Human Services study shows that the program is effective. In fact, the study shows the exact opposite. Using random assignment, 5,000 children were either placed in Head Start, or their families sought alternatives to the program. The study then tracked the children through kindergarten and the first grade. Specifically, the language skills, literacy, math skills and school performance of the participating children failed to improve. (more…)