Future Sex: D.C. Kids Take Nation's First-Ever Sex Ed Standardized Tests

Yesterday the District of Columbia released results for the nation’s first-ever standardized test that included sex education questions. The exam, known as the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS), was given to fifth and eighth grade students, as well as high school students.

Honestly, my first emotion upon reading this news story was disbelief. We haven’t been testing our students on their sex education knowledge previous to the year 2012? With all the Bush-era emphasis on “No Child Left Behind” and standardized test scores, no one thought it was important to see if children understand basic facts about their bodies and their sexuality?

Earlier this year the CDC released reports that public schools in our country weren’t improving – and were sometimes getting worse – in the realm of sexual education.  In my column, I covered the ludicrous answers to sex education questions asked over Yahoo Answers, as a way to highlight the fact that children do seek information about their sexuality, whether it’s available in schools or not.

11,000 D.C. students were selected to take a comprehensive health examination alongside their math and reading standardized tests this past spring. The fifth-graders answered 44% of the “Human Body and Personal Health” questions correctly, while the 8th-graders answered 58% of these questions correctly. However, all of these questions within this section were not directly related to sexuality and sexual health. High school students answered an impressive 75% of their “Sexuality and Reproduction” questions correctly, scoring higher in this section than almost any other on the Health exam.

Sexual education in the United States is subject to state, not federal, law. Only 22 states and D.C. require both sexuality and STI prevention education. 15 states require [only STI prevention education](http:// http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/398?task=view), and 13 states have no formal requirements at all. Perhaps the fact that D.C. is among the areas where more sex education is required is reflected in the high scores by their high school students.

Obviously, this is good progress and the results seem encouraging. If we accept that adolescents and young adults need to learn about sexual matters, then we ought to test them to see how well they’re learning the presented materials. It seems that a more in depth analysis of the data could lead curriculum creators to adjust the way information is presented to younger students in an effort to increase their scores.

Here’s an example of the objectives and a question given to fifth-grade students:

Health Strand 1: Students comprehend concepts related to health promotion and disease prevention.

Health Standard 5.1.7: Define STIs [sexually transmitted infections] and HIV/AIDS; describe behaviors that place one at risk for HIV/AIDS, STIs, or unintended pregnancy; and explain why abstinence is the most effective way to prevent disease or pregnancy.

Example Item:

People can get HIV/AIDS by –

1.    Touching a person who has HIV/AIDS

2.   Sitting beside a person on the Metro who has HIV/AIDS

3.   Having sexual intercourse with a person who has HIV/AIDS

4.   Sharing drinks or utensils with a person who has HIV/AID

Although abstinence is still being taught as the preferred method of avoiding pregnancy and STIs, this seems age-appropriate for fifth-graders. And the question is framed in a way that destigmatizes those with HIV or AIDS by impressing on children that you cannot contract the disease from touching an infected person or by sharing drinks with them.

D.C. has among the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country, so emphasis on contraception at high school age seems important. D.C. is also one of the poorest areas of the United States. And there is a relationship between poverty and teen pregnancy. Only 50 percent of teen moms finish high school and less than two-percent of teen mothers get their college degree by age 30. This lack of education feeds the cycle of poverty.

Though teen pregnancy rates overall in the United States have been falling in recent years, they are still the highest in the developed world. This is due to contraceptive education and availability, not the fact that teens here are having more sex than elsewhere. Even states as conservative as Mississippi have relaxed their emphasis on abstinence-only education recently in the face of teen birth rates as high as 111 per 1,000 teenage girls in some places.

We have to treat sexual education as we would any other subject – the potential for this information, or lack thereof, to be life altering cannot be overstated. The entire trajectory of young men and women’s lives can be dependent on access to correct and impartial information around preventing pregnancy and STIs. It seems like a strong emphasis on health education -- pregnancy/STI prevention as well as nutrition and exerciese information -- could produce meaningful benefits for so many people.

It’s my hope that more school districts in the U.S. will follow D.C.’s example. It’s when we overcome our cultural squeamishness around teen sexuality that we can accept some teen sexual exploration as an inevitability. Then we can treat sex ed as an integral part of public education and offer young people the information they need to change their lives.

@kellybourdet