To the editor:

Our illustrious State Board of Education is at it again, that is, the socially conservative, ideologically driven majority members. Last week the majority approved a requirement for schools to implement an “opt-in” procedure to obtain parental permission before students receive any sex education.

The social conservatives tout this as a means for “empowering parents,” but it seems disingenuous to me. If fixing a perceived power imbalance between schools and parents was really their goal, then it makes more sense to push an “opt-out” procedure. After all, this creates far less of a burden on our already overworked and underpaid educators.

But this “power imbalance” doesn’t really exist. Schools are generally receptive to community and parent concerns, probably more so than ever before, if for no other reason than to simply protect themselves from litigation or other forms of community wrath.

Most schools already implement some type of “opt-out” procedure as a means to accommodate individual parent/family concerns or beliefs, whether it’s sex-ed, holiday celebrations or the like. It just requires that parents pay attention to their kids’ lives and be proactive to a degree.

So this appears more as a ploy for the social conservatives to push their own ideological agenda as opposed to “empowering parents” or acting in the best interest of Kansas’ students. Perhaps these board members should worry more about stopping the continued decline of U.S. student performance relative to the rest of the world than trying to keep them ignorant of what a condom is.

Marcel Harmon,

Lawrence