An
influential state lawmaker says Sharon Kitzhaber's pet
program to reduce teen sex has been playing fast and loose
with tax dollars.
State Sen. Eileen Qutub says that Students Today Aren't
Ready for Sex, the statewide sex-ed program aimed at
sixth and seventh graders, doesn't teach kids that sex
should be reserved for marriage. It merely tells kids
to postpone sex, the Beaverton Republican says. So she's
seeking to slash the program's budget.
Qutub, an ambitious political moralist, might be dismissed
as a prude, were it not for two factors. First, she
chairs the committee that controls the budgets of all
health and health-education programs, including the
STARS curriculum. Second, she's picked up on similar
rumblings in Washington, D.C.
STARS started as a Multnomah County pilot project in
1994. The program trains high-school students to visit
middle-school classrooms, acting as role models, telling
the younger kids that abstinence is cool and teaching
them how to say no to sex.
It caught the attention of Sharon Kitzhaber, who championed
expanding the program throughout the state. Since 1995,
she's spearheaded a fund-raising effort that's funneled
more than $750,000 of private donations to the STARS
foundation, which supplements state and federal funding
for the program.
Thanks in part to Kitzhaber's cheerleading, STARS is
spreading rapidly. In 1997, it was in only half of Oregon's
36 counties. Today, it's in 31 and reaches 30,000 middle-school
students every year.
STARS coordinators report that students are messing
around less, and that's going to help the state continue
its trend of fewer teenage pregnancies.
But Qutub wants to shoot STARS down. Though the program
is popular, it isn't pure. "They do not teach abstinence
only," she says.
To Qutub, sex should be reserved for marriage. That
may seem a quaint notion, but it's backed by Congress.
Since 1996, Oregon has been using federal welfare money
to supplement state funding for STARS. Congressional
aide Mark Schwartz, who works for Republican Tom Coburn
of Oklahoma, says federal lawmakers required that the
money be used to promote marriage. The reason? Statistically,
married couples are far more financially secure. "This
is not a federal program to make young people virtuous,"
says Schwartz. "It's a federal program to promote marriage
as the best antidote to poverty."
Jennifer Gilhooly, director of STARS in Washington
County, says preaching marriage as the only means to
prevent teen pregnancy won't work in a diverse public
school district. "You have kids whose parents have alternative
lifestyles," she says.
David Lane directs STARS statewide. He says the program
does recommend waiting until marriage to have sex, but
it's only one of many reasons to abstain.
He says that satisfies the federal requirement that
marriage promotion be part of the abstinence
curriculum. "We're trying to balance that criterion
with a program that fits all the kids in Oregon," he
says. The point is to teach kids how to avoid having
sex, and the program does that.
Lane says federal health officials have reviewed the
STARS program and have continued funding it. The most
recent grant letter from the federal Division of Maternal
and Child Health, which administers the grant, praises
the program. Qutub, however, says the feds have been
lax in their oversight. That's why she's proposing to
chop the program's state funding in half and earmark
the cut--approximately $151,000--for other programs
that more closely match her ideals.
Cutting state funding would also take away matching
federal funds, which means STARS would take an unexpected
hit of more than $300,000.
Qutub's proposal has left STARS coordinators scrambling,
including those in the largest school system in Qutub's
own district. Beaverton school superintendent Yvonne
Katz didn't know Qutub was going after the program until
WW interviewed her June 18. She wasn't happy
to hear it.
"I am surprised, because it's a program that I would
expect Sen. Qutub to endorse 100 percent," says Katz,
who hoped to expand STARS to all eight of the district's
middle schools next fall. "This is a tried-and-true
program that has a good track record here and in other
schools."
For her part, Sharon Kitzhaber is keeping mum on the
subject. The STARS budget is a line item that has to
go before the Legislature's full Ways and Means Committee
as part of the Department of Human Resources budget,
then through both chambers for a vote.
According to gubernatorial spokesman Bob Applegate,
the first lady doesn't want to get involved in a battle
of personalities during the delicate budget negotiations
and is not talking to the press. She is, however, working
behind the scenes to keep the program from getting ravaged.
As for the governor, he doesn't want to be seen as
fighting to save his wife's pet project. At the same
time, STARS is an integral part of his program to reduce
teen-pregnancy.
Applegate says he expects that STARS will retain a
healthy chunk of its current funding. "First of all,
it's not that big a number," he says. "At the end of
the day, I think there is a willingness to compromise
on these kinds of issues that are small in budget and
high in profile."
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 23, 1999
