An editorial by former congressman Bob Barr in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution states that a Portland, Maine, middle school’s recent decision to offer contraceptives to middle schoolers is being done so at the expense of the students’ basic education.

What is particularly distressing about the Portland, Maine controversy is not so much that it is taking place at all, but that it is occurring even as those very same public school systems fixated on providing their young charges with birth control options, are failing miserably to provide students an adequate basic education in subjects that really do belong in schools.

As the Portland, Maine education gurus are pushing condoms, pills, skin patches and implants onto middle school kids, more than half of its eighth graders — some 57 percent to be precise — either do not meet or only partially meet state standards for reading. Those same middle schoolers fare even worse in math and science — with 71 percent of eighth graders failing to meet, or only meeting in part, math standards; a figure that rises to 85 percent for science subjects. You get the picture. Portland’s middle school students may not be able to read or do math real well, but they’ll be able to tell you all about condoms and birth control pills.

Do you agree that contraceptives and sex education are offered at the expense of basic education? Does the type of education, abstinence-only or comprehensive, make a difference in your answer? I’d be interested in whether Barr would also argue that abstinence-only education takes away from the core education.

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