It has been found out that most parents want the nation's junior and senior high schools to teach their children more about sex. This includes a better, more detailed guidance on how to use contraceptives and where to get treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. A study by Kaiser Family Foundation, conducted a series of national surveys with parents, teachers and students aged 13 to 18. It found that sex education covered basic information about reproduction and pregnancy. The Kaiser findings are based on interviews with more than 4,000 respondents across the nation.
Classes typically are co-ed and taught along with another subject.
Abstinence, teaching students to wait to have sex, figures prominently on the curriculum, with 84 percent of schools including instruction on that topic. AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases have become areas of study in the overwhelming majority of sex education courses. They are taught in more than 90 percent of schools. Parents say they want a wider range of topics taught than are offered in most schools. Nearly all parents, for example, want safe-sex and negotiation skills taught.