Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 5 September 1996
Mike Cooper
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 39 states and the District of Columbia required AIDS prevention education in 1994. In 1987, it was a requirement in only 13 states.
The CDC said AIDS prevention education was required in 83 percent of school districts in 1994. The subject was taught in a required course in 85.6 percent of all middle, junior and senior high schools.
"In just a short amount of time, we have been able to really widely implement HIV prevention education in this country," said Dr. Nancy Brener of the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.
Most health education classes detailed basic facts about AIDS but the CDC said only 37.1 percent of teachers in health education classes taught the "correct use of condoms."
"We really leave it up to local schools and school districts to decide what topics they want to teach in their curricula. We're not making recommendations about what should and should not be taught by local schools," Brener said.
However, she said "students should be taught specific skills on how to prevent HIV infection."
The CDC's School Health Policies and Programs Study found that teachers did not always know the latest techniques for teaching young people how to avoid HIV infection.
"All of the states and 61 percent of the school districts that require HIV prevention be taught provide in-service training on HIV prevention for their teachers," Brener said.
"The only problem is that only about a third of the teachers in our nationally representative sample had actually received that training (in the two years before the survey). It's important for them to get up-to-date information about the disease and the best way to teach kids how to prevent the disease," she said.
A survey this year by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 95 percent of Americans believe AIDS information should be provided in schools.
The CDC survey was based on information supplied by states, responses from 406 school districts and interviews with 1,040 health education teachers at 607 middle, junior and senior high schools.
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