California Board of Ed Adopts Sex Ed Standards

Contra Costa Times: State panel adopts health curriculum, by Dana Hull:

After nearly two years of debate and numerous drafts, California's State Board of Education quietly adopted its first-ever set of "health education content standards" this week.

The guidelines spell out exactly what California's more than 6 million students from kindergarten through 12th grade are expected to know about health and are required as part of a controversial 2004 law that replaced a patchwork of often contradictory statutes on sex education. The law requires that all high schools give "medically accurate" information about condoms and other forms of birth control.

The health curriculum, which also covers drug and alcohol use, nutrition, exercise and environmental health, is far broader than sex education. But teaching about sex -- and at what age -- is an explosive issue for many parents, and that topic continued to divide groups Thursday.