SAT's Decline, Contraception Thrives

This week, two stories crossed paths in a way I couldn’t get out of my head.  First, the SAT exams recorded the sharpest decline in reading scores in four decades and, second, the New York Public Schools decided to widen the scope of their contraceptive program.

            Let’s look first at the contraception issue.   The schools will not only provide birth control pills, on demand and in secret to girls as young as 14, but they will also provide the, “morning after” pill.  There was also serious talk about IUD implantation.  They actually had a doctor, with a straight face, talking about how, “dangerous” the pill was, which made the IUD ever so much more advantageous for these young girls.  I’m not going to discuss the issue of teen pregnancy and abortion.  What needs to be said on that subject has been said.  But, when schools talk about providing contraceptive, or abortive possibilities to these girls I want to ask a few questions.

Since any girl under the age of 18 is legally unable to give sexual consent, are the sexual partners (criminals, by definition) of these girls being sought out and charged with rape?  These girls have had their childhood stolen from them and are being sexually exploited by a relative, teacher, priest, boyfriend or internet scum sucker but no one seems to care.   The schools will mouth a bunch of platitudes about not wanting to, “intimidate” the girls with difficult questions, but that simply isn’t true.  What is true is an ugly, self-serving goal.  Nobody wants to be financially inconvenienced with a baby.  Sexual exploitation? No problem.  Sexually transmitted disease?  No problem.  Rape?  No problem.  Tampering with the biology of young girls?  No problem.  A baby?  Now that’s a problem.  The men involved in violating these girls are blissful.  They get to do what they want with not a shred of legal, moral or financial responsibility.  Why are schools so eager to protect the men who have sex with underage girls but do nothing to prevent the act itself? 

The other story was an article in the Washington Post about the reading scores on the SAT for 2012 being the lowest they have been in forty years.  There are a few predictable facts concerning the SAT’s.  Family income is a huge predictor of how well you do.  Asians are not part of the overall decline.  Public districts that have high academic standards and an energetic staff show gains. 

Those who would rather excuse than cure try to say that if the wealthy and white do well on a test it means the test is bad.  They point to every problem of low income families except the possibility of poor parenting.  Of course that does not explain Asians who succeed despite being immigrant, poor, living in the inner city and having English as a second language.  Nor does it explain the success of Black, Hispanic and other minority children who succeed because of good parenting in the face of over whelming poverty and discrimination.   Yet, as a country, our academic standards are failing us.

In the District of Columbia, public school students scored nearly 300 points below the national average.  I presume that does not include scores from the exclusive, Quaker operated, Sidwell Friends School where the Obama’s send their girls.  That school, and the families who send their children there, work together for academic success.  Good for them!  I wonder if those, “high end” parents would see some problems in their minor children being offered the morning after pill.   

Protect our daughters, and keep the faith.