Here’s the official state policy for state leaders when it comes to educating its children about human reproduction: See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.

And pray for luck. Florida’s kids are going to need it.

Because it’s becoming clear that, to the leaders of the current regime, sex is evil. Even talking about sex is evil. Telling kids how to protect themselves against the consequences of sex? Also evil. Keeping accurate track of how many kids are having sex, how many are using contraceptives, how many feel pressured into intimacy or fear sexual violence? Evil. Evil. Evil. Evil. It’s as if state leaders believe that if nobody talks about sex, having sex will never occur to Florida’s adolescent hormone factories. And if they do indulge, the state Legislature has done its best to ensure that the worst possible consequence — a young life derailed by an unplanned pregnancy — often can’t be resolved by terminating the pregnancy. And that any sexual behavior, or even discussion of sex, will be smeared with shame and condemnation.

This doesn’t just hurt children while they are in school. It undercuts the ability of parents to convey a more realistic view of human sexuality to their children, by pushing a conflicting sex-is-bad rhetoric.

Meanwhile, the state has stopped collecting meaningful data about how students themselves feel about their own sexuality, along with in-depth examination of their experiences and views related to drug and tobacco use, violence and healthy living.

A dangerous denial

Thus, over the past two years, state leaders have methodically stripped much of the value from sex-education programs while blinding themselves to the consequences of their policy changes. Under the state’s previous laws, school districts were required to stress abstinence as the best way to avoid pregnancy and other complications, but allowed to offer information on birth control, accurate depictions of reproductive anatomy and frank talk about concepts like “consent” and “abuse.” Parents who wanted to shield their children’s innocence could opt out of sex ed, but few did.

Under the current regime, most of those topics are now forbidden or pared down to descriptions so hasty and vague that they provide almost no guidance, district officials and education experts have told the Orlando Sentinel. Meanwhile, Florida’s teens are bombarded with movies, TV shows and online media depicting sex in highly unrealistic terms.

Florida leaders are ignoring a massive body of research proving that comprehensive, factual instruction in all facets of sexuality — including contraception, protection against sexual violence, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and accurate descriptions of the spectrum of sexual orientation — works. These programs reduce teen pregnancy and STIs while boosting students’ mental health and preparing them for healthy relationships. They can be highly effective in helping teens who struggle with their sexual identities. And they give courage to students who are being sexually exploited.

In states that lack good sex-ed programs (we’re looking at you, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama) teen pregnancy rates are much higher than they are in Florida. So are suicidal thoughts and attempts at self-harm among LGBTQ+ youth. The list goes on and on.

Local school officials in some counties — including Orange and Broward — tried to fight back and retain a more comprehensive sex-education program. As the Sentinel’s Leslie Postal reported in July, leaders found themselves blocked by state officials who never approved the plans counties submitted. In response, Orange County and a few others didn’t teach sex ed at all in the 2023-24 school year. But in response to the latest edict from state education officials — one that has not, curiously enough, been put in writing — the holdout counties are falling in line. Orange County has already agreed to use a curriculum that almost completely eliminates discussions of effective contraception, replacing it with lengthy discourses on abstinence — and leaves out much of the factual information students need to deal with issues they see on a daily basis. Broward County will be rendering its decision soon.

Hiding evidence of failure

If Florida falls in line with other states, it can expect to see troubling data trends that include increases in the number of children with unrealistic or dangerous attitudes toward sex (along with other risky behaviors). In response to that, the state has simply chosen to stop looking, quietly pulling back from the data-gathering that might uncover the impacts of their folly. In 2022, Florida formally dropped out of the Centers For Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which collected detailed surveys from students about their attitudes and histories with all kinds of dangerous behavior, including smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets and multiple facets of sexuality. It also asked teens if they’d ever feared violence or been pressured into intimacy. The survey’s matter-of-fact tone almost certainly bolstered students’ trust that their answers would be anonymous; follow-up research has shown that students provide accurate responses to questions, even those that are detailed and possibly uncomfortable.

Across the country, states have used this survey as a way to identify growing problems — or shrinking ones. For example, the survey recently revealed that across the nation, young people are losing interest in electronic tobacco-delivery systems such as vaping. Is Florida part of that laudable trend? State leaders have no idea. No Florida students were surveyed.

The state did come up with its own survey of high-school youth. But it’s lacking any of the details that the national effort explored. Only 54 of the 223 questions on the most recent survey have anything to do with risky behaviors, and many of those are worded in ways that could influence students’ candor. A copy of the “Florida Specific Youth Survey” includes only three questions about sex — whether the student has ever engaged in sexual intercourse, whether they are “aware of the benefits of abstinence” and “aware of the consequences of teen pregnancy.” Not surprisingly, given the judgmental nature of the latter two questions, answers to the first are suspect — and fall far below national averages on the more comprehensive federal survey. (For the record, 26% of Florida high-school students said they’d had sex, compared to 32% of students nationwide. We find that sus, as the kids might say.)

Advocates have pointed out that in Florida’s new survey, the voices of the most marginalized youth — including LGBTQ students and those with disabilities — are almost absent.

The rationale for dropping out of the youth risk study was never very clear — but many suspected it was because Florida leaders wanted to be able to pretend that their policies were good for youth. That the “don’t say gay” laws didn’t increase depression among LGBTQ+ students. That banning books with descriptions of racism or sexuality made students less racist, or likely to have sex. That preaching abstinence-only in sex-ed classes would curb recklessness among teens — even when every shred of credible evidence suggests the opposite. Eventually, however, Florida will have to face reality as rates of teen pregnancy and STIs increase, and the damage wrought by official ignorance tumbles from one generation to the next.

We have to assume that Florida’s leaders know what their policies will do to Florida’s children. That they have read the reams of scientific studies suggesting a strong link between accurate information and responsible behavior. That they are OK with burdening the futures of (officially uncounted) youth in order to score political points.

It’s enough to make you rethink the definition of the word “evil.”

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The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com

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