The latest pushback from Republicans on the McCain "sex ed for kindergartners" attack ad is that the bill Obama voted for wasn't only about inappropriate touching, since it also had language about HIV prevention education starting in kindergarten. Byron York of the National Review has a story out today pushing that line of attack.
Well, guess what I found out? HIV prevention education starting in kindergarten is a policy funded by the Bush administration right now.
The Centers for Disease Control are currently funding an organization called the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) for the purpose of:
Providing HIV-related information and guidance to state boards of
education and other education stakeholders on policies that promote
effective HIV prevention for kindergarten through 12th grade students in
schools across the nation.
Here is how the NASBE describes its guidelines, i.e, the "model program" it wants states to follow:
The goals of HIV prevention education are to promote
healthful living and discourage the behaviors that put people at risk
of acquiring HIV. The educational program will:
* Be taught at every level, kindergarten through grade twelve;
Oh, but that's just claptrap from the feds which states with solid "family values" would ignore, right? Wrong! The Tennessee state board of education has a policy (page 6) which echoes the language of the NASBE guidelines.
So, Senator McCain, this "sex ed for kindergartners" stuff which you claim to be so concerned about has been going on for years at the behest of the President you voted for . Are you telling me that you have time to comb through the minutiae of an Illinois bill that never passed, but you don't have time to find out what's actually being implemented right now at the urging of the Bush administration?
Update:
In case there's any doubt about whether the funding of K-12 education is ongoing to this day, here is a press release from this February:
The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) has
made grants to three state boards of education to promote more
effective instruction to K-12 students about HIV prevention. The
$13,000 grants are being made to the North Carolina, Oregon, and
Tennessee State Boards of Education.
Update II:
If the Bush administration and/or the McCain folks try to mount a defense of the form "we had no idea the NASBE has started to promote this kind of thing", well, that won't fly. The NASBE policy statement was updated in 2001. Seven years later, the NASBE is still getting grants from the CDC for the sake of promulgating that policy in places like North Carolina and Tennessee.