Has any really long-term stuff been done to see if the end results (unwanted pregnancy or STD infection) are different between the two groups?

Also, I wonder if the -method- of teaching sex-ed isn't working and could be tweaked. I know a fair number of folks would prefer to have the 'you need to wear a condom and/or be on birth control; you can always get them from me, the nurse, your doctor, or the store' should come personally from a student's advisor rather than in a health class, where the level of conversation is often limited to the least common denominator of comfort amongst 26 diverse students.

Interesting that you go in that direction. Why not suggest that this program — since it works — should be implemented in a broader group of schools and perhaps expanded where implemented? That doesn't mean that other lessons couldn't or shouldn't be incorporated into students' curricula, but the fact that you discern competing models suggests that there's something about the "comprehensive" approach that is disconnected from its practical results.

As for your suggestion, I'd be skeptical. For such a "trusted advisor" to be plausible, he or she would have to effectively bless whatever decisions the students make, and the lesson is still how to have sex, not whether to have sex.

Those whom I knew, growing up, with such advisor figures in their lives clearly took the message to be "go for it," or at a minimum, "I won't judge when you discover that you can't control yourself, because control isn't reasonable to expect."

I'm sort of obligated to 'whatever works' by my own philosophy, but I also think that intentionally -not- teaching something for fear that students will take advantage of their newfound knowledge seems seedy and sets a poor academic precedent.

This study measures 'sex' and 'condom use', but not real outcomes. That's also a problem. I certainly know plenty of risk-taking folks who have made it to 30 abortion and STD free, and plenty of sticklers for the rules who are raising teenagers now or have herpes. Put simply, the inputs and the outputs don't seem to match from my limited anecdotal perspective. If the goal is to reduce teen pregnancy and STDs, shouldn't those be the results measured? I understand that doing that would require a much larger and longer study, which would seem the next logical step to vet the abstinence-only model.

I went to a school where we had 'trusted faculty advisors', and I always felt that their one-on-one input was far more valuable than classroom interaction. Granted, I didn't always listen, but the relationship I had with them made it easier for them to identify 'when' I was falling off the tracks and more importantly, 'why'. I never felt that I was being encouraged or allowed to do bad stuff, quite the opposite.

Unfortunately, I think that 'comprehensive' sex-ed is ignored as much as math, science, and English at urban schools. There are still plenty of post-sex-ed kids who think they can get pregnant from 'doing BJs' (as they call it), or don't know about the 'changes' their bodies are going through (nor the ramifications of those changes).

As as 'teaching kids how to have sex', this study discredits that theory just as much as it supports the abstinence-only approach... There was no difference between 'no intervention' and 'comprehensive intervention'. Everyone older than 9 in the city knows full-well 'how' to have sex, even if they have no idea how fertility or infections work.

I also got comprehensive sex-ed, and I can tell you, it was no more 'how to have sex' than the dictionary. It wasn't as graphic or as encouraging as our mind's eye, the curriculum was more along the lines of those 'what's happening to my body' books.

The fear is that kids are being bombarded with pro-sex messages and pressure from all sides by the time they're twelve. I'm not sure anything short of a cultural revolution will change the 'everything else' that pushes adolescent sexuality. Is it wise or ethical to leave the sexually active kids in the dark about how they can protect themselves? We need bigger, longer, more meaningful studies of outcomes to make those determinations.

Well, now we're getting to the fallacy of the anti-abstinence-ed movement: That to encourage abstinence education is to eliminate all mention of birth control and so on. In actuality, we're typically discussing a single course that, if in school (rather than church groups or elsewhere) is hardly a full school year's worth of lessons.

I'm not arguing that kids would remain entirely innocent or ignorant about sex were it not for comprehensive sex ed. I'm arguing that, in a highly sexualized cultural environment, the safe-sex regimen merely affirms the pervasive message that they will not be able to (and perhaps shouldn't try to) resist temptation. Abstinence programs should strive to offer that contrary message, and they do work.

As for your insistence that we perform studies until we know every variable, that's just not how society functions. Take a program that appears to be working and implement it more broadly. Note that, in your first comment, you're entirely willing to experiment with comprehensive sex ed in the field, as it were. Expanding abstinence programs should be no different.