Abstinence education is back in the news as a recent study from Mathematica Policy Research continues to cast significant doubts on the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education in preventing teen pregnancy, early sexual activity, and sexually transmitted infections. The report, which was commissioned by Congress in 1997, followed 2,057 U.S. teenagers in late elementary and middle school who participated in four abstinence programs, as well as students in the same grades who did not participate in such programs.
While this is a topic that is a bit outside the scope of things we comment on here at the Budget Brigade at OMB Watch, I raise it to compare congressionally mandated studies to evaluate programs and the efforts undertaken by the Bush administration with the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). Congress commissioned this study to compare the impact of abstinence-only programs with a control group of students who did not participate - a helpful comparison in determining if it is the abstinence-only programs that are actually making a difference (and the result has repeatedly been that they do not make a difference).
Let's compare that to the PART's performance measurement evaluations. According to the PART review from 2006 of the "Abstinence Education" program, the way program performance will be measured is through tracking teen pregnancy rates, percentage of teens who report never having had sex and who continue to abstain after participation in a program, percentage of teens who have had sex and then report abstaining following participation in a program, and decreases in percentage of 9-12 grade students who report having had sex.
These are all fine indicators of the level of, well, teen pregnancy and sexual attitudes and actions of teens in the country. Unfortunately, they will not show whether it was the abstinence-only education programs that caused the improvements or goals unless there is a comparison to difference programs or a control group that does not participate in any program.
What's even more appalling than faulty methodology within the PART is the outright fabrications that the administration actually uses PART survey findings to inform its funding priorities. The PART review for the abstinence program references a "forthcoming" Mathematica study (question 4.5) and say it "uses a rigorous experimental design with random assignment of control and experimental group." But when the results of that "rigorous" study were released this past April, Harry Wilson, a top official in the Department of Health and Human Services, told the Washington Post that the study "isn't rigorous enough to show whether or not [abstinence-only] education works." Incredibly enough, Wilson added that the administration has no intention of changing funding priorities in light of the results.
Do I really need to say more about what a sham the PART is?
Posted by Adam Hughes