Measures Withhold Needed Facts, Help It’s Posturing These Bills Are Mere Meddling.

Forget welfare reform, health care problems or simply running the state - Washington lawmakers would rather waste precious time this session trying to micromanage schools and moralize to teens.

Two proposed laws in the Republican-controlled House and Senate would severely cut back on educators’ ability to speak frankly with teens about sex and AIDS. One would funnel money toward abstinence education programs that would edge out the other, more comprehensive programs schools currently use. The other - a “parents’ rights” bill - would require written consent of all parents before students could get sex education or counseling.

Both are righteous posturing and have no place in government.

And, they’re dangerous. The measures ignore the reality that many kids are already sexually active; others are considering it. They need information about everything from statistics on teen pregnancy to places where they can get contraception. Without it - if they decide to have sex - they could become parents or, worse, contract a deadly disease.

Obviously, abstinence education should play prominently. Teens need to know the psychological and physical risks of becoming sexually active. They should be urged to wait until they’re older, hopefully until they’re married.

But that message shouldn’t come at the exclusion of others. Right now, it doesn’t. School curriculum on sex education - which undergoes strict scrutiny from local districts, school boards and parent committees - gives kids age-appropriate information on sex issues. For many, it’s the first and only thing they hear about the topic, since parents aren’t comfortable talking about it.

Requiring all parents to OK sex and AIDS education for their kids would be a bureaucratic nightmare, and virtually ensures that the kids who need the information most - those whose folks have checked out - won’t get it.

Parents now have ample chance to oversee what kids are learning in school, and to take them out of a sex ed class if they’re uncomfortable with the content or approach.

Both bills are needless meddling, aimed at pleasing a tiny but vocal constituency. It’s baffling that conservatives - who profess to want less government in their lives - are proposing this extreme government interference in the way local schools are run. Kids, and generations to come, will suffer if either is passed.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see “Sex-ed reform provides a compass”

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