ucation in public schools from attacks of an unreasoned, emotional nature with a comparative study of pedagogic evaluation. It plays well with his intended audience, but it is preaching to the converted.
The specific controversy Adame addresses is a familiar one: sex education is considered immoral by a significant minority of society, which attacks the concept itself from a number of different approaches. Since the moral contingent holds as one of its essential beliefs that Knowledge = Sex = Sin, a basic biblical allegory from the Book of Genesis, the most direct attack on sex education in public schools is that providing students with such knowledge encourages immoral behavior. There is no particular statistical support for such a conclusion; consequently, anecdotal argument is that form of critic's usual weapon. Concurrently, as government statistics indicate that teen pregnancy (or, at least reported teen pregnancy) is on the rise, critics of sex education in schools cite this as validation of their position.
Adame acknowledges the criticism by the very title of his article, but does not address its moral foundations. Instead, he adopts an objective analysis. He looks at the instance of rising teen pregnancy and, very correctly, notes that there is no direct correlation between that rise and sex education. He does not particularly mention the fact that lack of sex education might be the principal cause of that rise. Rather, Adame approaches the issue from the basic pedagogic belief that Knowledge = Good in all cases. He discusses how students' attitudes and behavior mature when exposed to education (i.e. knowledge), drawing the conclusion that sex education, therefore, must have a positive effect as well. He notes, and rightly so, how the same critics who attack sex education and blame it for rising teen pregnancy rates do not apply the same criteria to other aspects of education: they do not blame rising crime r...